is 33 too late for a second baby?

[taylorsweet]

Hi, I have a seven years old DD from my first marriage. i am now happily married second time and my husband loves my little girl. we are thinking of trying for a baby next year sometime but i also want to study for a second degree and i will be 29 this year!
I don't know which one to do first? And my DD keeps asking when she will have a sister or brother? Another degree will be 3 years more so will i be too old at the age of 33?

No, but if you have just got a degree will you be happy to have a baby and not to use it for a while?

Having read the first couple of replies having an issue with what I said I feel I must explain what I meant as clearly I didn't write in a way for people to understand.

Having lost babies myself I am very aware that becoming pregnant is not the same as having a baby so there was no point discussing getting pregnant. Sometimes that is the wasy part. Your body has to grow and nuture the baby until such a time the baby can be born and manage their own life. The OP wants a baby. She doesn't just want to get pregnant.

I've met some mums over the years with kids v close together 'because we want to get it over with' - and that's not a view I would subscribe to at all. I was a young mother (to start with) having dd1 at 21. We then had dd2 3 years later and then dd3 when I was 30. She completed our family and dh and I love the spread that we have but I know some people look askance at that. I am happy that whilst dd1 will be 18 before my 40th birthday, I will still be doing the active day to day parenting of dd3 well in to my forties. My fifties will be when dh and I are paying off the cost of the kids university living the wild life

I'd do the degree and enjoy being young and a student.
I would be thinking a bit about the age gap with dd but on the whole I don't think there's so much of a difference between a 7 and 10 year gap compared to what you have to gain in the way of freedom and being able to concentrate on your studies. I had mine at 34 and 36 and was glad I had the opportunity to do so much, especially travel wise, but also in terms of training and education, first.

I think this is the strangest thread I've ever read on Mumsnet.

Too old in your 30s?

Brave to be having children in your 30s?

Weird.

[off to put my feet up and have nice cup of tea - well, I am 35 and my joints are paining me]

taylorsweet, just because fertility starts dropping after 30 doesn't mean it plummets. The decrease is gradual, and for most people the difference between 29 and 33 is insignificant. The same thing goes for the increased risks of childbirth: 33 is a tiny bit more risky than 29, not massively more risky, certainly nowhere near as risky as over 40- and tbh most women and their babies survive that too. If you are pregnant in your early thirties you will not get treated as an older mother by the medical establishment.

Good point about not being treated as an older mother by the health system. I was considered low risk enough at 40 to go for a homebirth without any arguement - didn't get one in the end but that had nothing to do with my age.

Regarding how you live op, like someone else has said, you already have a child - do you really feel your life has been on hold for 7 years? You are a family, you do stuff as a family. If I want to go out for evening courses, see my mates or whatever, then dp has baby. If he wants to go out then I have baby. Occasionally we go out together on our own when grannies are available. I feel quite sad if you think you have to wish away the years with your dcs so that you get some more freedom.

I got pregnant at 37 and 39 at the first time of trying-just like when I was younger.

When I had dd3 last year at almost 37 36, I made a joke to the midwife about being an older Mum, she laughed at me and said I still had a few years to go yet.

oh well i didn't have the chance to live much do all the travelling and going out because i married too young! i was a single mum by the age of 26 and went through hell! Now i am happy and settled , more mature but i find myself wanting to do all those things i missed out on in my early twenties....maybe i do sound daft like one of you mentioned but that's how i feel! i love my DD to bits don't get me wrong.....but i have doubts whether i should have a second one and when! some days i want to and some days i just think hhhhh i can't do this again!

I think you have answered your own question taylorsweet. Enjoy the family you have, go back to studying, do some of the things you'd like to do. Hopefully enough people on here have helped you see that whether or not you have another dc is not a decision you have to make now - there's never any guarantees but you've got time on your side here. If you were desperate to have another child now you probably wouldn't have posted the question. You don't sound daft for feeling like you missed out, but you do sound daft for insinuating that all of us old cronies are past it! Hats of to you really - I would have been a terrible mum in my 20s, but I think i'm a bloody good one in my 40s.

39 and 43 for my two.
33 too old? ... unless you are unlucky... no .

I had my first at 29 and my second at 34. I do know where you're coming from a bit, as orginally I wanted to have children in my mud twenties - be done by my thirties at least.

Sadly, I couldn't find a partner who would agree to this plan, so I had them later on

But 33 is not too old. Are you worried about the big age gap? It can be daunting to go back to the beginning once you have a child in school, but you can learn to relish the baby stage again.

Yes, when I had DC2 at 36 my midwife said there was still time for another if I wanted. However we stuck on two

I had dd1 at 23 and then dd2 at 35.

Age makes very little difference to being a mum. The hard bits are still hard, the fun bits are still fun.

I had my DS a couple of weeks after my 32nd birthday and I'll be at least 34 when we hopefully have a second. I find it tiring, but I think I would have found it just as tiring whatever my age, as I've always needed my sleep.
I'm certainly not the youngest mum where I live but could imagine being so in some places!
You need to think about what age gap you want and whether you would like to try and complete your family before doing the degree, and which one can wait and which you'd rather didn't.

I started my degree at age 33
Had my first dc at 34 (between 1st and 2nd year)
Am just completing 3rd and final degree year and currently pregnant with second dc who will arrive when I am 36.

It has been totally fine and dandy

So I say go for it!!

for those who mentioned studying social work.....how many hours/days in a week do you attend uni?

What a silly question

then don't bother answering

If you post, expect a response. 33 is hardly over the hill is it?

it feels like it to me......

well don't do it then

No, of course it isn't. I think 45 is pushing it, but that's about my limit.

I had my first - sort of accidentally - at 37 and my second at 40, btw.

Personally I asked myself the same question as the original post only 3 years down the line - my solution was to delay neither and do both at once. Worked for me.