Getting pregnant in late 30s

[bayleaf]

I am just feeling really 'down' having read an article in today's Independant about how the idea that today's women are leaving it later to have children, and thus having the best of a career and then babies, is all a myth as a large proportion of those who leave it till their late 30s and early 40s never ever get pregnant despite trying just about eveything. The article seems to be based on a book - Baby Hunger or some such title - that is about to come out.
As I'm 38 and desperately trying to conceive - and have been for 8 months ( dd is 15 months) this has really got me down - especially as I had 3 miscarriages before dd so know I am not ''Ms Fertile'' to start with....
Anyone out there got any ''getting pregnant late on'' stories to cheer me up and counter this article??? PLEASE!!!

Marina and Jodee - thanks! Still in denial I think - can't quite believe the lunacy of this...life just getting a bit easier etc...but I'm also quite excited...trying to play that side down in these early stages. Don't worry - now I've been lured to "come out" on this thread...I'm sure I'll be posting regularly!
Jodee - how are you doing now? Hope my tale gives you hope too!
Bayleaf - I've just skimmed read today's Times "T2" section - about the same book - Baby Hunger, and I find the statistics completely alarmist and sensationalist! She says by the age of 35 your fertility drops by 50%, and that by 42 your chances are less than 10% of conceiving. I know plenty of women who have had no problems at all in conceiving "later"... of course unfortunately some have had problems - but across my section of friends/women I know - I would certainly say that the few with problems are the exceptions....She also says that her message to anyone trying over the age of 35 is to adopt now!!!!! How do people get away with writing that kind of thing. I do feel that I have been very lucky - but I certainly don't feel that I am an incredible exception to these batty statistics!(and if all this tosh is correct - thank God I was resonably careful with contraception in my 20's!!)
Of course most people's fertility declines with age but is it really necessary to scaremonger so sensationally just to hit the headlines?
Bayleaf - have a bonfire with the papers!!!and get down to the biz!!() Prove them all wrong...keep us posted!

Thank you Maras - and I'm so pleased to hear your news - I can well imagine how hard it must be to allow yourself to 'enjoy' it and to start telling people - it feels like tempting fate doesn't it?
I am well up on the statistics for healthy pregnancies after a miscarriage tho - and they re very definitely on your side. Best of luck!

Lovely news Maras. Couldn't agree with you more regarding the article in T2. I think her exact words on adoption were something like "Go get yourself a baby girl from China now"... Also thought the anecdotes of childless women told us nothing about fertility but more about women ending up in their late 40's with no partner. The statistic quoted seemed very dodgy indeed.

Great news, Maras. I remember when you miscarried your last one and feeling so sad about it. I've just had my third and (mostly) can't think why we debated for so long whether to have one or not. We're loving the chaos!

Yes, the statistics in those articles ARE wrong. Very wrong. The true facts are, up to the age of 34, you have a 90% chance of conceiving in one year (even higher in early 20s). From 34 to age 40 there is a slow decline to 67% chance of conceiving in one year. After that, your chances do drop dramatically, but even 45year olds have a 15% pregnancy rate in any one year. So the drop between 34 and 40 is a mere 23% - not halved. I researched this and actually got the Observer to publish a correction to their feature. Pity none of the journalists used their common sense and checked the figures themselves. The Observer actually said that 40-year-olds had a 2% chance of getting pregnant. Common sense and a look around you would have suggested that definitely wasn't true. I suggest women complain to the newspapers involved - they are peddling lies and causing a lot of upset.

another late pregnancy here - and I have polycystic ovaries. Didn't have any medical help either. Personally I think it was because I was (accidentally - I hadn't heard of the glycaemic index then) on a low GI diet. Eat Yourself Slim is a good book to read. Even if you are not overweight the diet may increase the chance of conception. A good site to look at for facts is www.inciid.org

I have just conceived after my first month of Clomid, after 10 months of trying. I am 38 years old and my GP practice was no use at all, just kept saying ...keep trying. So I booked myself an appointment with a private gynacologist, took along my carefully plotted cycles from the last 10 months, and he gave me a private prescription for Clomid. Total cost was about £120, which I thought was well worth it. For what it is worth, he thought I probably would conceive eventually with no assistance, but at my age I wasn't prepared to take the chance. Good luck - loads of my friends are the same age, and a couple are much younger, and it doesn't seem to take the older ones much longer on average.

Maras, I'm fine, thank you for asking. We are going to try again very soon, so thanks for the positive vibes!

That's excellent news Tia - CONGRATULATIONS! I was wondering about you as I remember from reading on another thread a while back that you were in a very similar situation to myself. The one difference between us seems to be the helpfulness of our Gps! I went to see mine again rather than wait to finish the 3 months 50mg clomid before going ( didn't want to 'waste' a month!) and he's given me 100mg clomid for the next 3 months and a referral for dh to do another sperm test. He's had 2 before, before dd was conceived- the first one was very dodgy - then he stopped smoking cannabis and the second one came back fine - so I've always presumed that it was just the weed and that as he no longer indulges he must be ok now - but I've decided that we should presume nothing and check everything!

Sobernow, yes, men do have a biological clock. New British research shows odds of conceiving within 6months drop by 2% a year for every year a man is over 24. But but it doesn't make that much difference - the chance of pregnancy taking more than a year doubles from 8% up to age 25 to 15% at over 35. Having said that, I had my first at 38 and dh is 44.
Info from www.stadlander.com/reuters/repro/14071710017.html

I believe male fertility is declining - no-one knows why but something to do with oestrogens possibly used in packaging - I don't know much about this. Anyone else? So it could be argued that for some older men their fertility could be greater.

Certainly we had no problems. No 1 conceived within a month when I was 33, DH 53 and No 2 was a "mistake" at nearly 36/56. I don't think there is such as thing as a male menopause - they can go on fathering children as long as they are physically able to "do it".

If environmental oestrogens have an effect on sperm quality (and I think this has recently been contradicted by research) then I would have thought they should affect older men just as much as younger as whatever the age of the man, the sperm is only 3months old - it's sort of made to order unlike eggs which we're born with. The evidence for declining fertility is very mixed - there is an argument that more couples present for fertility treatment simply because there is more fertility treatment! In the Sixties, for example, there was no Clomid (I think) or IVF etc so couples just regarded childlessness as an act of God and never went to see their doctors so didn't show up on figures. But it is true that in couples who seek infertility treatment the infertility is 40% male, 40%female and about 20% cause unknown. You certainly wouldn't think so from reading about infertility though, the implication is often that it's just a female problem.

I thought there was a real decline in fertility, due in part to STD's like clamydia, which are hard to detect? My 14 yr old DD was told in her SE class that 25% of 16 year old girls in our local goverment area have an STD.

Those figures sound a bit over-high to me but I could be wrong. Chlamydia can cause infertility but it is far from inevitable - it's only ever a problem if untreated for years so screening is a brilliant idea, but it's not quite the modern plague the Mail would have you believe! Men can become infertile from it too, which you rarely hear. The whole infertility thing is not at all certain. There are as many studies showing rising sperm counts or stable ones as there are showing lower sperm counts. The World Health Authority is currently doing a huge study to try and find out the truth, but at present the massive rise in infertility we read about may be an urban myth. Or, if sperm counts are declining, as some scientist believe, it may be due to something quite benign, like sitting. We all sit about more (driving/watching tv/desk jobs etc) and wear warmer clothes and have more central heating which may be just enough to increase testicular heat and suppress sperm production! Smoking seems to have an effect, taking drugs (cocaine, nicotine, marijuana) has some effect and so does drinking. Working with heavy metals and pesticides seems to have an effect, but there's not much evidence that just eating pesticides in food has any effect. There is also some evidence that boosting a man's antioxidant vitamin& mineral intake (vits C, E, B12, Zinc and Selenium) might help. I'm really interested in this subject and have written about it, hence all the research.

I have to admit, I find it fascinating, and am amazed how much wrong/inaccurate information is published with the express aim (it seems) of terrifying women! I suppose 'women still pretty damn fertile at 40' doesn't make a good scare story. It's like the story that said women who had babies late were more likely to get breast cancer - actually the study showed that having babies PROTECTS you against breast cancer, the earlier you have them the more protection you get, but even having a baby at 44 (or 46 if you're Geena Davies ... wonder if she used donor eggs?) means you are less likely to get breast cancer than if you didn't have any. Same study, different interpretation. BTW, I've just noticed a mistake in the link I suggested below, it's stadtlander, not stadlander.

a frightening thought: They think that the gels in nappies can cause infertility.

I know, it is worrying but the evidence is pretty weak. Another survey showed that plastic lined disposables raise the temperature of baby testicles whch researchers suggested might possibly damage sperm production. BUT studies were very small scale, babies don't produce sperm anyway and there's no evidence of any cause and effect. Also the study showing that plastic lined disposables raised scrotal temperature compared to cotton nappies didn't use the cotton nappies with a cover, as I believe is normal. Still, I have to say I did wonder if it might be worth swapping to resuables - does anyone know if you can use cotton nappies without a plastic cover?

Don't knows Aloha but there is a brand of nappies called 'Nature's Own' which are in white packs - they are 70% natural I think.

Bayleaf - thanks for the congratulations - I wish you the best of luck and lots of babydust for the next few months!

Interesting to see the research in today's Independent/on the Today programme re-fertility.
Headline about decline in fertilty - but as so many people here have said when you actually look at the statistics the decline is from a 50% chance of conception in any one month in early 20s to 30% by late 30s - wow I'll accept 30% anyday! - it seems really high to me ( tho clearly irrelevant in my case as after 9 months am still not!) But at least it puts my mind at rest that I'm not trying ''the impossible' given my age. Aren't their headlines silly!?

But it got you out to buy a copy, Bayleaf!
And it would have done for me too but for the fact that where I work we take all the broadsheets so I don't have to stump up 50p.
So guess what I will be doing at lunchtime (apart from waiting for my period to start )
I contacted Babystart, BTW. Aren't their prices competitive! Thanks so much for that.

I see today's ridiculous feature on page 3 of The Times is that fertility now starts to drop dramatically at 27... at this rate I'm suprised contraception is still available on the NHS. After all according to this "research" it seems hardly necessary for all us geriatrics on our 30's.

Well yes and no Marina - we have the Independent delivered everyday - BUT I did run out of the loo with my knickers round my ankles more or less because I could vaguely hear someone on the Today programme going on abut early drop in fertility but couldn't hear it properly and was desperate not to miss anything!
Hope your period is blissfully absent...