How worried would you be at this age? friend comment worried me

[hildar]

I’m 36 in October and I am in a 4 month long relationship with someone I really click with. It’s been a slow pace, didn’t have sex until a week ago for example. But he makes me feel like the world is lit up again! Quite soppy I know. We have talked about marriage and kids and he said from the start that’s what he wants. We’ve never said we want that together and obviously we have only just started a relationship so it isn’t a topic for now. He’s 38 if that matters!

Speaking to a friend last night who was going on and on about how old I am and said I really needed to start having chats with him about a having family ASAP. I really want this and she knows it but I felt it was almost said in a way to put me down...she is settled and there’s been a few comments about my age in the past which have upset me. Anyway, regardless of her intention it’s really panicked me.

My question is, if you don’t want kids alone (I know it’s an option it’s just not for me), how worried would you be now? I think about it all the time and have since I was 30, just never met the right person, but I don’t want to rush things with this man. I also want us to be more established and that can’t happen immediately. How worried would you be about age?

I am finding it hard to relax and see how things go and I don’t want to ruin the relationship in the process.

OP try not to focus on your friends motivation you are aware of the facts about age and fertility so don’t shoot the messenger and forget the message.

You can’t allow yourself to turn into a rattling psycho about the baby issue but you can be straightforward with him. It really does sort the men from the boys.

You can also find out more about your own fertility and that will either progress a chat with him sooner or reassure you on going the slower route of engagement, wedding, baby.

Either way inform yourself and that information will empower you to take charge of making the things you want to happen in your future take shape.

I think she is being rather rude ,however if you do want DC then may be wise to broach the subject (Not yet though!) maybe in 6 months or so .There are many women who have had DC later ,but if there are any probs (hopefully not) you have got some time on your side then .

Maybe you should change friends.
Good friends are always pleased for you and supportive.
Not making you feel pressured.

Male infertility can scupper plans too, not often mentioned on here, but it's the reason my friend is childless. Too late for her now and he's with someone else.

I do think, however, that you have a bit more time to see how this pans out OP. Your friend is just being realistic.

@AcornCups

Of course fertility declines, your not ancient but your not really young to get it all together in a let’s date for ten years first way. So I can see why there is some sense of not wanting to wait around but your friend is clearly not helping.

My SIL would bring this up right away with men she dated mid to late thirties. It scared them off. You have both brought it up naturally. Now if the time to find out if your compatible as people. There is no manual with how many months you should wait. Let it progress and evolve but as the months past it will hopefully become apparent.

@AcornCups Assuming she wasn't going around early in dating telling men she wanted to have kids with them specifically, your SIL was probably scaring away the wrong men which is EXACTLY what you want.

A lot of men want marriage but without the commitment on their part i.e. serial long-term live-in non-committal relationships, so scaring such men away is exactly what you need to be doing when you don't have loads of time to waste. If having a real marriage/kids is important to a man, a lot of these men will already be married by late 30s so you have a bigger pool of commitphobes/undesirable men to steer clear of once you get to that age.

Wanting marriage/kids is perfectly normal (despite many women in our culture being gaslighted to believe that we should be normalising and putting the selfish desires of non committal men first in relationships and should be scared of questioning them, if our needs are different, especially when we women have a much limited time frame to have kids). If a man is on the same page regarding wanting marriage/kids in the near future, such conversations won't scare him off at all, in fact he will be glad you're on the same page as him.

@Elouera

I'd be booking a private gynae appointment and having your AMH levels checked. This is a scan and blood test and will give you an indication of your ovarian reserve and whether its poor, average or high for your age. If your reserve is higher than normal for your age, then there isn't such a pressure to TTC right now.

It doesn't rule out other fertility issues which can affect you, but would at least give you an indication of where you stand. They generally wouldn't do it on the NHS until you were TTC at least 6mths after age 35, so going private would be much quicker.

This.

Aside from that, it's 4 months in, far too early to be putting pressure on.

I’d enjoy the relationship and reassess in 8 months how the relationship is going and what direction if any it’s moving. If I wanted DC I wouldn’t give it longer than that if the relationship doesn’t seem to be developing into something more serious.

maybe freeze your eggs to take the pressure off? just as a back up plan

I wish people would keep their opinions to themselves over such sensitive subjects, unless you've asked for advice. I had a friend keep going on about my age and it was just really annoying and quite upsetting.

I met my DH when I was 38, married when i was 40 and had DD1 at 41, then DD2 at 44. Both conceived naturally, no problems in pregnancy and both utterly perfect.
I think you're sensible to have a conversation about what you want in the future. DH and I had the conversation fairly early on, so we knew we were on the same page. I was also terrified that I was too old, thanks to unhelpful comments from friends.
A lot of my friends have had their children aged 38+. I hope it goes well for you.

It sounds like you are both on the same page, I would be a bit worried about fertility but I would also want to know the relationship was going to last. If I were you I would give it a year and have the discussion again and if your both in agreement then start ttc.

Definitely have the fertility MOT, you need to know how that's looking before you can make any decision about TTC I think. I also think as you get older relationships do get more focused more quickly - in my 20s I had friends who had been in relationships for years that were just ticking over without any progress as such, and hardly any of them ended up marrying that partner. Now I am in my 40s and nobody who I know who is dating is coasting like that!

I met my DH when I was 38, married when i was 40 and had DD1 at 41, then DD2 at 44. Both conceived naturally, no problems in pregnancy and both utterly perfect.

But surely you can concede that you were lucky? I met DH aged 34, conceived at 35, had DS at 36 and by 38 was in early menopause (not that we realised that at first - we only found out when we underwent investigations for secondary infertility). If we’d messed around for 3 years after meeting, we wouldn’t have had any DC. Admittedly I’m unlucky but OP doesn’t know which end of that scale she’ll be and if she definitely wants a child, she needs to take steps to find out.

And statistically it becomes less and less likely that your eggs will be ‘utterly perfect’ the older you get. That’s just a fact. It might not be bc a factor for the OP but then again it might.

Better to never have kids than to force the issue in a rushed relationship.

Chances of conception decline but so do the chances of meeting someone else. I'd rather have a loving compatible partner and zero kids, than have kids in a crappy desperation relationship as so many do.

Your instincts sound very sensible, so trust them. Your friend sounds like she’s being a cow on this occasion. Who knows what’s bugging her, but give it some space for now.

Having said that, you are 36 so 9 months into the relationship - ie in 5 months, I would expect to know it was for keeps or move on.

I had a stillbirth last year at 38 (not age related) and was terrified that was my only chance to have a child. I had a miscarriage in January (now 39) and here I am again well into my 3rd pregnancy. All my friends who’d conceived at 39+ were telling me everything would be fine though I didn’t believe them because it’s supposed to be really hard to get pregnant in your late thirties. I had my fertility levels checked and they were average for my age.
So I guess what I’m saying is, if you’re fertility levels are normal / average don’t worry too much

I'm sorry to hear that @Iheartbed wishing you the very best for this pregnancy.

Your friend is definitely jealous, and trying to take the shine off your relationship however.. she does have a point.

I told DH within a couple of months that I wasn't looking for a casual fling, and if he didn't see marriage and possibly kids (I wasnt convinced either way) in the future then he needed to say so.

We've now been together 8 years, have a DC (when I was 38 Btw) and have been married 4 years.

There's nothing wrong with having a mature adult conversation about mature adult things. You're not teenagers!

Please don't let your 'friend' make you sabotage this new relationship by putting pressure on him (and yourself). You're still getting to know him.
Imagine how he'd feel if you suddenly start issuing ultimatums about kids etc! You'd sound bonkers, and it's unnecessary as he's already told you he wants children.

I think your 'friend' has put a lot of pressure on when there's no need to. She sounds a bit smug tbh, and frankly it's none of her business. Why does she feel she has the right to treat him like a sperm donor on your behalf?

I would also say that at the age of 35 you don't need to worry unduly about fertility. I know plenty of women who had children post-40 (including myself), so please just enjoy your gorgeous new relationship for what it is. Don't panic, you know he wants kids, so just let things happen in time xx

I don't see how worrying can help! You are getting into a relationship and are very happy. Adding a load of pressure to this is not going to be a good thing. Why not see how it goes, decide if you are right for each other and then discuss children etc?

I do agree however with the poster who mentioned checking your fertility, perhaps freezing some eggs. Could take the pressure off a bit

Absolutely everything @DateXY said. All of it.

I wouldn’t be sitting around worrying about pressure, at your age if you definitely want to try for kids you really need to be upfront about that. Otherwise months will go by and you might unknowingly be in a dead end relationship, losing more fertile time.

It’s not pressure to tell a new partner ‘I want kids and I’d like to try for them around this age if I’m with the right person (be married before etc.), if that’s something you want for your life too then that’s cool and we can see where we go. But if you don’t want that that’s fine but we will have to part as friends’

Told DH on our first date (me 28, him 24) I was ready for a family and planned on trying for a child in 2-3yr either alone or with the right person, and that I was only willing to become exclusive with somebody who wanted the same things as I did.

If it scared him off then great, I didn’t have the urge to spend time in a relationship with an expiration date at that age. Better to be single and free to meet someone than in a relationship that has an end point surely?

In your shoes OP it wouldn’t be ‘I want YOUR baby now’, more ‘I want a baby around this date, are we compatible enough to keep seeing each other?’

There’s no need to be passive about your fertility, especially as you get older. I wouldn’t be upset or concerned by your friend’s comment but I would be keenly aware of the amount of time I had available to have a child and the steps I needed to take to get there.

And I do wish people would read up on egg freezing before suggesting it. The success rates aren’t good, and you’re old to be doing it.

A fertility MOT isn’t a good idea imo, if it looks like things are okay it can give you a false sense of security when in reality you have no way of knowing whether you’ll be able to conceive and carry a healthy pregnancy to term or not until you try. Lots of factors affect that, including sheer luck. And a positive outcome to the MOT might encourage you to sit back and think you have plenty of time instead of crack on. A negative outcome wouldn’t make you magically in the position to have a baby now either.

At 36 your best outcome is being honest about what you want and when, making sure you’re not with someone it isn’t gonna happen with, and working towards it. I wouldn’t be hanging around.

And to answer your OP re how worried I’d be in your position, I’ll be honest: very.

But I always knew I really, really wanted a child, and that I would be devastated if I wasn’t able to have or try for one. Everything else was secondary to that in some respects. Ended a relationship when it was clear we weren’t on the same page regarding starting to try. Have and had a very full life, wonderful career and friends, never struggled to find partners, but a child was just something I was determined I would try for. At 28 I started to get serious about it and dated to find a relationship that would less to marriage and kids instead of the kinda fun for now aimless relationships I had had earlier.

So at 36 I’d be really scared, feel like the clock was ticking and be cracking on.

Your friend sounds insecure. I had my first (and only) DC at 38 with no problem. I only had the one because that is what I wanted, if it is not tmi, I got pregnant first time of trying.