If you met your DP mid-30s and wanted children, how quickly did you have them?

[FreckledLeopard]

Prompted slightly by another active thread and something I've been thinking about.

If you met your DP in your mid-thirties and knew you wanted children, did you marry and/or get pregnant more quickly than you otherwise would have done if you'd been younger? Did you feel like you really 'knew' your partner or were you taking a slight chance and hoping for the best?

I met DP nearly a year ago. We both want children. Time is ticking. It would have been wonderful if we'd met a few more years ago, but as it is, we're talking about TTC at the end of next year.

Has anyone done anything similar? Any regrets?

I met DH when I was 33. I don't think I was in a place to make a sensible decision about who was right for me until that point. If I'd met DH earlier I probably would have rejected him for being unexciting (i.e. not messing me around) instead at that point I was old enough to understand what a valuable commodity being straightforward actually was.

We married within 18 months and DS was conceived 10 months after our marriage. I didn't feel I was taking a chance with DH as I knew he was the man I wanted to marry.
I don't feel we rushed it necessarily, we had a small number of great holidays together before DS was born and we have had equally good (but different) experiences since.

I've interviewed rather a lot of fertility specialists and gynae types, and they are far from all doom and gloom on the old '35' alleged cliff. And in any case, as plenty of people point out, all that does is make you feel particularly doomed if you are 35 and single and childless.

Which I was.

Then I got together with DP on 27 December 1999. Positive pregnancy test on my 37th birthday on 5 June 2000.

Thanks mother inferior.

I met DP at 33 DS at 38- fertitility problems to a degree but ones that would have been there at any time- was more having to go through 2 years of TTC to prove to doctors that i needed help (then I conceived naturally)- I don't think my time frame was any different that it would have been when I was younger. Its hard now as it feels like the chance of a second child is slipping away...

We got together later- I was 33, he was 44- although we had been acquaintances for years. I finished a long-term relationship at 32, and worried that would be it for me. We got married after 18 months, and started trying immediately. In the end, it took us 9 months to get pregnant, which I worried about at the time, but in retrospect I'm glad we had that time just the 2 of us. It was golden. We've now got 2 well under 2, and we're done. But I think the fact we're older means we're totally ready to stay at home and be a family. There's no yearning to go out and get drunk or go on exotic holidays because we've done all that. Anyway, I really hope it works out for you. The other benefit of being older means (hopefully!) you know what you want, and you know when it feels right, so there's not necessarily any virtue in waiting.

P.s. Rookietherednosedreindeer, we have had v similar experiences. I would also have rejected DH earlier for not being exciting enough, but later I realised he was perfect in all the important ways, which only become important when you know what you want!

Just wanted to add my 2 pennyworth....Yes it is not wise to leave it too late (even just from tiredness stakes) there are plenty on women who have had children later. There is also no evidence that your starting age makes any difference. For instance my dmum had her first at 25 & her last at 42 as plenty of her Catholic friends did. There were also plenty of family members with no children & were probably trying.
Yes if you get together later you have to get on with it before the menopause kicks in. But also know that you have had a full life before even if it wasn't together! Good luck!

Also recently I know a lot of people in their early 40s who have had babies, mostly through IVF.

Someone who worked for me went through a lot of treatments and I must admit I didn't think it would happen for her as she was 42, but lo and behold she's had a baby and that's wonderful.
Ideally it would be better not to leave it so late, but life is anything but ideal!

I think at this point, I'll point out that men's fertility declines with age as well. If the woman is older, then the man is likely to be older still.

You might have decided to have children, but it could take some time to realise that your partner is the one with the problem. Don't leave it too long before being tested.

Met DH when I was 39 and he was 41. We had both been married before and had kids , but we wanted a baby together.

Married when I was 40, got pg immediately . Had baby just after I was 41. Had another just before I was 43.

Both times I conceived straight away ( second month of trying on first occasions and without trying !! second time ) . Both pregnancies were good and I had healthy babies at term .

No HCP ever treated me as if I was elderly! When I asked my GP for advice on TTC at 40 she said " have lots of sex " .

There are lots of stories of doom and gloom out there, but try not to get sucked in. All the stuff you read about " the odds of conceiving at 38" are NOT based on women who have just started TTC at 38. They are based on women who have already been TTC for years , so obviously they are much more likely than average to have problems.

i will scream if I hear one sanctimonious person preaching about "your fertility will decline from 25 so plan ahead " .

I don't know ANYONE who was in a happy and stable marriage / partnership ,financially secure and with two great careers in their mid 20s, who decided they would wait another 15 years to have kids.

Everyone I know who had kids in their late 30s or early 40s,did so because they hadnt met the right person earlier on or their previous relathionship had broken down. Or they knew they're didn't want to have kids with that person. Or their partner didn't want kids . It's wasn't part of a Grand Plan .

No one Plans for their marrakge to break down, or for their Dh to run off with someone else . All this " planning ahead " advice is bollocks

I didn't plan for my marriage to fall apart and for me to then get divorced. With hindsight I thank my lucky stars that I did split up with my ex and that we had no children. And I am so grateful for meeting DP. I just worry, though, that having children fairly on in a relationship will put a lot of pressure on that relationship. But then again, I feel very differently about DP than I ever did about the ex, so perhaps my fears are unfounded?

As I say, i don't think having children early in a relationship necessarily puts pressure on it. In a ideal world, children would be the consummation of that relationship, iyswim. But only you know whether it's that kind of relationship or not.

Yes, having kids will put pressure on you, it always does. I don't think there's any way round that. But hopefully you will be better equipped to deal with it as you are older and have more realistic expectations.

Has your DP had kids before, does he know what to expect ?

One thing Ive noticed is that when men become fathers for the first time in their 30s,their mates usually support them and give good advice. I guess because they have kids too . There's little pressure to go out socialising , as there is in your 20s, whenyour mates are still young free and single .

I got together with DH when we were 26/28 but we didn't have our first (and only) dd until I was 40. We were financially secure and in a happy and stabel marriage with good careers, but children didn't suit our lifestyle and it was something that would have been nice, but not something I was set on. It was very much our plan though, not because we didn't think we wanted children with each other or because I had to convince DH to have children.

I'm glad it's something we didn't rush into tbh, we've had lots of high pressure years in our marriage, but also lots of carefree years as well. Life has really changed with dd in the picture and I think there's a bit of a pattern amongst many of my friends who met in their late 30s and got married and had dc very quickly - it does put a lot of pressure on the relationship, even ones which seemed blissful - and lots of them have broken down. I think one of the reasons DH and I are so strong is because we had those early years of 'just us' in our relationship.

This is an emotive subject. Chucking personal anecdotes at something with a reasonable volume of good stats helps no one.

I am not being sanctimonious, nor am I saying plan ahead. Or being smug. Or intruding in your personal choices. Or telling you to get knocked up by the town drunk if you are childless at 38.

I saying be aware that your fertility decreases from the age of 25 and your chances of complication - Down's etc - increase rapidly 35+. That's it.

Saying 'I had a baby at 45 etc etc', 'I got pregnant at 40 after 2 weeks etc etc' does not prove the above is not true. There is plenty of recent stats from many countries (not 300 years ago, not just from French peasants).

This statement is wrong: 'No HCP ever treated me as if I was elderly! When I asked my GP for advice on TTC at 40'.
Any woman 34+ will be classified as an 'older mum'. You will be given talks about Downs and directed to a Nuchal scan.

Again, a generation ago, any woman pregnant with her first child 25 or older would be the exception.

Not a generation ago. My mum had her first at 29 and that was the early 70s. No point in scaremongering.

I have no idea how I was " classified " , here and there. But I can assure you that I was never made to feel old, or treated as such by any HCP.

I was never given any talks on Downs syndrome. I did not have a nuchal scan .

Please stop telling me that my lived experience is wrong .

I am not disputing any medical facts. I am disputing the misuse of statistics , collected on one population and applied to another .

And I'm suggesting that most women do not "plan " to wait to 38 to TTC for the first time, that it's almost always because of circumstances outside their control . Lecturing them about " not planning ahead " is pointless and patronising .

The OP asked for personal experiences . I posted mine. I think it's up to the OP to decide if she wants " personal anecdotes chucked at her " .

We conceived within 18 months of getting together.

all this is irrelevant to the op she is 35 ish so is the age she is. Fertility is personal to the woman and all this stuff is just based on averages.

God luck op, sounds like a great plan

Whilst I am conscious of potential fertility issues and that's what is driving the desire to TTC next year, my larger concern is the impact that meeting/moving in together/getting married/having babies within a gap of under 2.5 years has on a relationship.

I suppose every relationship is different so perhaps generalisation is impossible.

For those who needed assistance with fertility and had only been with the DP a short-ish period of time, did that bring you closer together or put a strain on the relationship?

Can I please ask where those of you met your DP or DH in mid/late 30s did so? I'm mainly online and speed dating as I just don't seem to come across single men in other ways - work, friends etc. Whenever I think that someone's nice they seem to already have a partner, so it's hard not to feel the best ones have already been snapped up.

Met DP (online!) at 33, engaged after 20 months (was getting annoyed he left it so long actually). Married at 36. Pregnant just over a year later, conceived after about 4 months of properly trying.
I honestly believe that older/more experienced = wiser. I knew what I wanted and needed by my mid-thirties.
Good luck! X

Dd from my previous marriage is 4. I'm 6 weeks pregnant, DP is 40, I'm 37. It took less than 3 months from deciding to try to a bfp :)

dollyrocker I already knew mine, but I'd never looked at him twice. Then we ran into each other again through work, and it all just sort of clicked.