Tell me if you had children later on/after 37? I'm scared it is too late

[lizzedays]

I'm 32 and I want a family. I focused on my career all my life and relationships took a back seat. They don't these days, but in the last couple of years i've not been so lucky with men!

I'm scared it is too late and it is all my focus now. If I knew i could have children in say, 4 years, I would totally relax (i know that's always an unknown for everyone). I'm just scared.

Has anyone got any happy stories to share?

Married at 36, first DC at 39 (fell naturally whilst in the IVF queue), second at 41 (fell naturally after nine months of trying). If you had asked me at 18 when I thought I’d marry and have kids, I’d have said in my late 20s and early 30s respectively. But it didn’t happen that way. We knew we hoped for kids but we had some setbacks along the way and some difficult times but for us, it happened in the end.
Whilst I was having my antenatal care, the obstetrician said she saw more and more women having babies in their mid-late forties.

Had mine at 25 and 35, fell pregnant immediately with both but OMG my energy levels were completely different. The sleepless nights with youngest DC have been a killer and my energy levels are shot. Having a baby in your 20s is a breeze physically, I coped really well.

Married 37, first child 38, second in my forties. Both pregnancies straightforward.

I love being a mum and I think for me, being an older mum has been better, as I've got much more patience the older I've got!

I met my DH at 33, married at 34 and had kids at 35, 37 and 40.

Don't panic!

I came off the pill and started ttc at 37.

I was diagnosed with premature ovarian failure 18 months later. I’m not pregnant using donor eggs at 39. It has cost me an endless amount of heartache and money to get here.

You may be lucky, you may not. There’s no guarantee either way. My advice would be to crack on if a baby is what you want. You really don’t have time to lose.

Good luck

Are you in a relationship? Even if you're not, my experience (with me and my friends) is that if you meet someone in your thirties and you both are happy and want to settle down, that things move a lot quicker than they might do when you were younger.

I met my (now) DH when I was 32, married at 35, first baby at 36 and second baby at 37. The past few years have been a bit of a rollercoaster but it's all good.

I suppose everyone is different. I was utterly terrified of giving birth but at 35, with the biological clock ticking, we tried and I gave birth to my first at age 35. He was over two weeks overdue and I ended up with an emergency CS. My second at age 37, with a planned CS. They are both lovely healthy adults now.

I think these days, if you take care of yourself, there is no reason to worry.

Pregnant with first at 41.
Don't be reassured. You always hear 'I know someone who had a child a 43' etc. Then you go to a fertility clinic and get a rude awakening. It's not that easy.
Go check out the ivf success rates by age.
Of my 6 friends who left it later than 37 five had miscarriages. They all have kids now but stuff like that isn't easy.
My understanding is there's a drop in fertility at 35, 38, 40 and my doctor says she asks patients 42 and above to really think if they want to spend the money and chances of success are so low.

I started trying at 35 when I got married but after lots of problems I eventually had DD at 40 and DS at 42.

I had my DS2 at nearly 41. I had decided I wanted another DC around the 36 yr mark, although I didnt want to try straight away as I was getting used to being on my own having too much of a good time

I originally planned to ttc around 38/9 but put it off till I was 40, got pg on my 5th cycle.

My now 1 year old was born when I was 38. DH and I are now hoping to have one more in the next year. Though perfectly happy if our DS is all we are blessed with.

I have been with DH for around 3 years and for me this was the right time / age and relationship.

I genuinely thought I had left it too late, not biologically necessarily, but certainly emotionally. I really didn't think I would find someone I connected with, loved and trusted enough to take that leap with.

I was very happily proved wrong!

I had my 5 dc aged 25, 27, 30, 36 and now 38.

Physically much easier at 25 but emotionally felt best at 30. Just tired now at 38 but all things considered not much difference through the ages.

Think it depends more on what the temperament of the baby/child is tbh!

Btw fell pregnant at 38 completely by accident, only had unprotected sex once!

Had my dc a month shy of my 45th birthday. A case of assuming I was too old and not taking precautions which my midwife said was increasingly common as women have taken to heart the message about fertility nosediving at 35. OTOH my friend's gynae took some persuading that I hadn't had any treatment to get pregnant and said I was exceptionally lucky.

I had a very easy pregnancy and healthy baby but within a year was told that I was unable to have anymore naturally and would have to go down the egg donor route.

There are no guarantees and no right time.It's worth having your fertility checked to give a rough idea of your chances. A friend in her late 30s has gone down the AI route as she wanted a child and didn't want to risk not finding "Mr Right" in time. It's worked for her but not everyone is happy to prioritise a child over a relationship.

Good luck - I hope it all works out whatever decisions you make.

I have 6 children when I was 21,23,37,39,42and 44 yrs old. All naturally planned and with the same husband, so not to late for you.

Ds born when I was 37, dd born 12 days ago and I'm 40. Last word the consultant who delivered her said to me was "see you next time". Both were conceived easily.

Hi there OP, as my name might suggest, I had a baby at 47 recently, she’s a beautiful 14 week old bundle of joy now! I do have three other children aged 20, 15 and 12 from my first marriage, I had in my late 20s to mid 30s.

We did lose two babies before this one but each pregnancy was all our own work and this pregnancy was pretty easy for me. There are no guarantees so I wouldn’t recommend starting out at this age but I don’t think you need to worry too much for a couple of years.

Good luck x

My eldest sister had my niece (her last child) at 36 and my other sister is currently pregnant with her first due in September at the age of 42.

Have a read of this OP, it presents a more balanced view of the stats.

www.theatlantic.com/amp/article/309374/

Had 1st last year at 41 (fell pregnant at 40.5, the 4th or so time we tried having sex without contraception).

I read in an article by Christian Jenson (Embarrassing Bodies) that some figure in the 90% range (sorry can't remember exact figure, just that it was over 90%) of women 35-39 fall pregnant within a year of trying.

Apparently some of the most quoted stats are from several hundred year old French parish record studies - when nutrition etc. were much poorer.

Aside from that whole debate, someone on here said in a similar thread that your fertility begins to decline 10 years before your menopause age .. and that your mum's menopause age is a good predictor; this could be untrue, I haven't looked into it.

I had my first at 32 and my 4th at 40

First at 41. Twins at 43. Not ready to have them earlier. Doesn't work for everyone though. Depends on your fertility. Also having them late can mean you have elderly parents to look after at the same time as teenage children, and children to fund thro' uni etc. when you might want to retire.

Also; where I'm from (Northern Ireland, very near border with Rep. of Ireland) catholic families often had children until the woman couldn't anymore due to the influence of the church; it was average/normal for the women to have kids until about 45.

I sometimes think that, because many women use such effective forms of contraception and choose to have kids before 35 or so, we have a totally skewed view of long, on average, women will naturally keep having kids for.

Apparently the birth rate for women in their 40's recently overtook that of under 20's.

Obviously that's about when women choose to have children; but also shows that it's not impossible or even rare to have kids in your 40's.

My youngest was conceived after I was 37. My grandmother’s youngest 2 were born after she was 38.
There’s a fair number of my DC’s classmates with mums who were over 37 when they were born. It’s really not at all unusual for women over 37 to have babies, at least not in my social circles!

Having said that though, there’s no guarantees that this’ll be the case for you. I know a few women in similar situations to yourself who’ve had their fertility tested - would that be something worth considering?