Help. I’m pregnant. At 43.

[Babybelle81]

I am 43 and soon to be 44 and just today found out I am pregnant.

I do not have children and my partner is 60 with grown up children who doesn’t want anymore.

I thought I was peri menopausal so thought I was safe, stupidly. I felt sick and sore boobs and am late, so tested today and it came up straight away.

I’ve not told him yet, I’m so frightened to.
I also have an amazing career which was going from strength to strength. Above all else, I don’t want my baby having old parents. He will be 80 by the time it is 20 and I just feel it’s unfair.

Please can you give me your honest and straightforward thoughts.

Thank you in advance.

He's older than average yes, but 60 isn't ancient!

Of course anything can happen to younger parents but older parents get ill and die
She wont have her own life.. she will be in her mid 60s by the rime the baby is an adult... sge had a great career biw , not easy to do as a single parent of a disabled child.

All of my scenarios may never happen but I asked her to consider them as a possibility

I had a surprise baby at 44.
My DH is a bit older than me, as well.
Kept an open mind, throughout…
Didn’t have any tests, my choice.
Sounds like you want this child.

Perhaps you should consider that 50 years ago wasnt actually that different to the world now.

People are people. Some are selfish and dont want to take responsibility and some are not.

Some are educated and sensible and have common sense, others however.....

"You also will not have your own life ever again realistically" - that is just bullshit.

Yes, well i can understand hos concerns re his daughter's reaction. 38 is quite old to find out that you're having another sibling. However, he shouldn't have voiced that out loud or even if he did, he should still be more supportive towards you. That said, when he said that your symptoms are only going to get worse, surely that's some acceptance that he expects you to continue with your pregnancy.

I think it's shocking that so many posters are advocating a termination because of the man's age.

You're saying 'take a life' because the man may not live beyond the next 25 years.

Many children's parents die before their life expectancy is reached.
All our lives are unpredictable.
Amongst my small social and family circle I know of 4 men who lost a parent between the ages of 13 and 37.

There are also 60 year old men who are fitter than unfit 35 year olds.

It's not me that needs to get out more. What staggering ignorance!!!

I guess you haven't noticed, well, anything. This isn't a cultural thing at all!!!!

Hi op he’s certainly leaving it all to you by the sounds of it. I had a child at 44 - he’s 15 now - it’s tiring off course but he brings so much joy and keeps me young. 🌺It’s absolutely nothing to do with his daughter but we can’t stop others having an opinion.
I choose not to have the amniocentesis at the time given there was a risk of miscarriage- I was given a few extra tests and I think it was 1 in 33 chance of having a child with downs but this was all 15 years ago.

I am actually floored by the level of ignorance!! Just breathtaking. And then the audacity to slate me 🙄😂

He's barely known for 24 hours.

Please bear in mind the risk factors regarding miscarriage. Maybe don't make any life changes or publicise widely until past 10-12 weeks. Speaking as someone considered to be late having kids (40) and who experienced multiple miscarriages, at 4 weeks it's very early days yet. Congratulations and hope whatever happens, that you are very happy and healthy.

It's really old to be a dad.

I had a blood test on the NHS at 13 weeks.

The hospital I gave birth in maternity unit was linked to one that was doing a trial.

Then when my daughter was just over 1 they rolled it out to all maternity hospital in England for women over 40. Then Covid hit so I don't know how successful the roll out was.

I was alive then, were you?!

This is such a hard one.

I wonder how many sensible women are going to get caught out, believing they are no longer fertile due to our ever increasing awareness of the spectrum of perimenopause...

Anyway.

@Babybelle81 I had my third at 42, DH 3 years older. It's all been pretty do-able as older parents. At 48 now, I'm getting tired and increasingly aware that my now 6 year old has an older mum, but its not a massive issue. Downsides balanced with upsides.

But the thought of it at 60. Eek. Pretty horrifying, if I'm honest.

So I'm torn really. Totally do-able for you and might even be the right thing for you. But for him, I can fully empathise with an absolute no, at 60.

Putting aside how you (both) managed to be in this situation, you are where you are and it's going to take some serious discussion that acknowledges both of your valid positions.

If I were you in this scenario, and I wanted to continue with the pregnancy I would assume I was doing so with a minimal level of dad input. Right or wrong, society tolerates a wider range of approaches to fatherhood than motherhood. Perhaps you could talk realistically about what kind of father he feels he can be at 60 (and 65, 70, 75) and decide if that's acceptable to you both.

You didn't mention different cultures and ideas though, you said 'in a different era' which does imply you are talking about it being an age thing.

My dad is 63, he had the snip after 4 kids at 30.
My ex (I also had an age gap relationship similar to OP's) is 59 now and had the snip before i met him when he was 26.
It's not a new thing.

What you describe was however more common 20+ years earlier. My grandmother was considered completely responsible for preventing pregnancy and had 2 terminations in her 40's at the insistence of my grandfather - that unfortunately was quite common back then but rarely spoken about.

Why will she not have her own life in her 60's when her child is an adult? That is such an odd take.

As you said, all your scenarios may never happen.

So terminate the baby that the OP clearly wants? He can't change his age!!

Indeed I was!

But I'm probably too ancient to remember 😂!!

Only fit to wish for a happy death!! 😂

It's really old to be a dad.

Obviously not!

I mean him not having a vasectomy could just mean he wants to protect his bits, he didn't think she'd get pregnant, he didn't care if she did as assumed she'd terminate the pregnancy.

Yeah, selfish then.

I thought my husband was selfish not having a vasectomy because he was too chicken to have it. I thought it would have been a fair trade-off (to say the least!!) for my 3 c/sections. I had a tubal ligation when I had my 3rd baby so that got him off the hook.

We even used condoms early in our relationship shock horror. We're both 61, imagine that. We even went to uni!!!

I'm not disagreeing @Lookingatthesunset , just worded differently.

Hi, 15.5 years ago I fell pregnant unexpectedly with our 4th. Given the fights we had for me to conceive dc 3 I knew it would be awful. He asked me to abort but I could already feel her moving and just couldn't. Fast forward to now. We are getting divorced as he had an affair in February but has also fundamentally changed. It's been a gradual but definite decline with him opting to work in the Middle East to 'earn money' which is true, but mainly to get away from his large family.

The pregnancy was actually his fault! I say this because he'd bought 200 out of date condoms for £1.00 but failed to warn me. I too can't take normal contraceptives. We'd only used a couple.

His affair and lack of wishing to say sorry or have any remorse has absolutely crushed me. But if I could go back in time I would still go ahead with my pregnancy. She turned 15 the other day and despite lots of eye rolling is an absolute delight and joy. So that is my story. I do not regret her one single second and am glad she is part of my life! I was 40 when she arrived.