The World's Oldest Mums

[kathyis6incheshigh]

On now (C4).

C'mon, we have to have a thread about this!

[TheCrackFox]

Actually I feel a bit sorry for the 72 yr old. Yes, she is mad as a box of frogs but she is bound to find an even madder doctor to help her on her quest. She is very unlikely ever to get pregnant but it will take her £20000+ of further failed fertility treatments for her to get the message. Meanwhile, crazy doctor will be driving a Porshe.

[hester]

helpet, I agree we need public debate - I'm just complaining about the media coverage and comment on these women that suggests they are in some way disgusting and repulsive. It's all very sad.

I actually feel very uncomfortable about this doc focusing on real people, esp. the 72-year-old. She is not going to get fertility treatment in this country, she is clearly a bit vulnerable, and I think an ethical doc would not have featured her. I have worked in fertility clinics, and there is always a stream of applicants who are unsuitable because they are emotionally vulnerable/mentally distressed/incapable of forming and sustaining relationships/desperately lonely. It's not fair to represent them as illustrative of clinical practice in the UK fertility services.

The maker of this programme appealed for interviewees on Mumsnet, didn't she? I seem to remember a thread of responses that graciously declined.

[babyignoramus]

If the 72 year old was so desperate to be a mother then wouldn't she have been better off adopting? If she'd done that at 50 she could have had grandchildren by now. It smacks of her wanting to be the 'oldest mother in the world' eather than an actual mother.

[MollieO]

Apparently she is justifying her choice by citing Jade Goody! 'Any mother can die at any age' .

[MollieO]

She would be too old to adopt.

[kathyis6incheshigh]

According to the many articles about her online, she seems to be keen on it being her child biologically. Even though it would be with a donated egg, she thinks if she carries it it will have some of her genetic material from being in the womb.

[babyignoramus]

MollieO, would she have been too old at 52? Madonna seems to get away with it!! She is happy to go abroad for IVF so I assume she would have been happy to go abroad to adopt. Not condoning it, just thinking that in the long run that would have been an easier option for her.

[babyignoramus]

Sorry, just read Kathy's post - 'it would have some of her genetic material from being in the womb'. FFS, someone give that woman a biology lesson!! (The 72 year old that is, not kathyis6incheshigh)

[LynetteScavo]

At one point she(the 72 yo) said somthing between having to choose between having a baby, and a career, and she'd chosen her career.

I think there are millions of woman in the world who can blow that theory out of the water!

I jsut think she has no real concept of how much hard work it is to be heavily pg, or to look after a toddler.

[MorrisZapp]

Being devils advocate a bit, but since when has being at peak health/ fitness been a factor in having kids?

What about women who are (for example) heavily overweight? Disabled? Depressed? Suffering from chronic health conditions?

These women have kids all the time, and it would be seen as prejudice to suggest that they shouldn't.

Obviously 72 is a very extreme example (and surely an irrelevant one, as nobody will treat her anyway) but in general I don't see why a fit, solvent, intelligent and loving woman in her fifties is a less worthy candidate for motherhood than a woman of 25 who smokes heavily, is overweight and can't run for a bus.

[chegirl]

I think she may find someone to treat her. I was quite shocked at the way the Indian doctor dismissed the health risks as 'like driving a car' etc.

I dont think she will get prg though. I really do not think she is typical of older women who want to become mother (I bloody hope not anyway). She will be trolled out for ever more because she is such a gift to car crash tv. She says exactly what is expected of a steryotype of a old woman who want a baby. She answers questions in a snappish, shallow way, dismissing real concerns. For an obviously educated woman she answers things like a teenager who wants a baaaabeeeeee because Katie Price has one.

I know we I have a tendency to diagnose people we dont know feck all about but I really think she has some sort of personality disorder.

I am the sort of woman who will never give up wanting babies.t I know I am. When I hit menapause I know I will be stupidly devastated. I cannot ever hear myself saying 'never again' when it comes to babies. So I am trying to understand. But even I would have to accept when my time was over.

I wouldnt be so pragmatic about someone of a much younger age who couldnt conceive. That is a whole different ball game.

[kathyis6incheshigh]

I agree, it was not just her age that was the problem. I suspect if waterskiing 70 year old American mum had been wanting another she'd have got more support.

I was thinking through what would make me (subjectively) feel differently about a 70 year old wanting a child and I came up with a list:

1. obviously excellent health and energy, way better than the average 70 year old
2. strong family back-up for help with child and so should something happen to her the child won't be alone
3. evidence they know what it entails (such as experience caring for parent with demanding physical needs)
4. justifiable reason why they haven't done it before

And you're right Morris, we wouldn't apply all those demands to a younger unhealthy woman wanting a baby!

[Tinker]

Going back to the Spanish woman - her mother died at 101 and she said if she'd died at teh same age as her father had (84) she'd have been able to have kids. Well, that's 17 years earlier when she would have still been late 50s? I did feel sorry for her though but I think her kids will have the best outcome as will be brought up by nephew and wife in their late 30s (and they won't remember their mother )

[EldonAve]

Is it usual for people not to tell their kids that they were conceived via donor eggs? The US twins still seemed quite shocked by the news

The Spanish woman's kids are going to be brought up and then find they are not biologically related to any of the people who are left raising them

[hester]

babyignoramus - in the UK the usual policy is no more than 40 years between adoptive parent and child. They will stretch that a bit in certain circumstances, but only a bit.

There is absolutely no way a woman in Madonna's position (50 years old, unsettled lifestyle, getting divorced) would be approved to adopt a 3 year old in the UK. She adopted through the American system, as a US citizen.

[BakewellTarts]

EldonAve I don't think its unusual as it must be a hard conversation to have...also those twins seemed to be very close to their mum so must have been a shock to find this out. Might have been easier to tell earlier so they grew up knowing.