Whether you are terrified of the prospect or just conscious that this may become an issue down the track, I’m speaking to you.
You could be in your forties or fast approaching your forties or just interested in what may be in stall for you when you reach your forties.
Having babies late is not new in the 2020’s. For the last five decades, more and more women have been having babies later.
That upward trend is set to continue. There are a few reasons.
- We expect more out of life – a life before babies.
- Medical advances continue to improve fertility outcomes for older parents.
- Society touts the benefits of delaying parenthood.
We often start our thirties childless. The median age is over 30 for having children in Australia and in many other European countries. When we suddenly panic, and start desperately trying but failing to have a baby, we often feel stupid and incredibly conscious of the slippage of time. Popular media is awash with tales of woe – repeated miscarriages, failed IVF cycles. These sad stories haven’t reversed the upward trend. People will continue to make babies late and just hope technology catches up.
Getting back to the situation you now find yourself in.
Why am I speaking to you?
You are forty, you want babies; and you realize you have to do something because if you don’t, by default you have made a decision not to have babies. That’s the panic of the forties in a nutshell.
The making up your mind to do something about it is by far the most difficult part.
I think older parents are the most overlooked in a society which highly esteems youth. The irony is that in our push to make the most of our busy lives, we have pushed out the very people who could help make our lives more satisfying. Babies.
For a women in her forties, the real challenge is to make up for lost time.
You may not have a partner, you may not have reached the pinnacle of your career, you may not have saved enough, you may not have an abundance of good quality eggs left but you have to stop procrastinating and make a decision. You have to step up and ignore all the great advice you’ve received over the years about optimally having a partner and doing this or that, and decide how badly you want babies and if you do want them badly, what you need to do to get there. Sure, that goal would have been better formulated years earlier when you were regarded as ‘too young’ for babies. But now’s not the time to commiserate. You have to do your utmost given the situation in which you now find yourself.
I’m here to say you do have options. The information is not readily available which is irksome. A lot of the censorship is imposed by political or legal correctness. We want to crush baby dreams because we want to recast every new way of doing something as too extreme or legally precarious.
My most important message is: it’s not too late. It’s not ideal from a biological standpoint so you may have to do things you never contemplated – and that’s the trade off.
Analyse your weak link. I use that terminology ‘weak fertility link’ deliberately. I think we are so fearful about offending someone somehow inadvertently that we no longer speak plainly or from the heart. And going along with the tide of popular opinion for the sake of conforming is what got us into this mess.
Your weak link may be no partner, no gametes, no womb.
You may have to consider doing things that you never previously contemplated. And by this I mean potentially costly fertility treatment. IVF is almost a given in your forties because your chances of success even with an IVF cycle are statistically somewhere between 16% and zero depending on whether you are 40 or 45. Obviously your cumulative chance of success increases the more cycles you do. You may want to consider non-traditional family structures (going it alone for instance without a husband or partner), you may consider using someone else’s gametes or embryos or have someone else carry your baby.
You certainly don’t wake up and decide to have a baby by the most unconventional means possible. It is typically something you become reconciled to as opposed to choosing from the outset. A forty year old’s fertility journey typically has highs and lows.
The great thing is that where you’re at is where a lot of people before you have been and will go. And they have had babies. That’s comforting. And you can have a baby too. Fertility specialists, donors and surrogates exist to help you in your journey. But for you, they wouldn’t do what they do. And there’s another very important person that would not even be born but for you, your future baby.
So shake off any lingering doubts and make up your mind to do. You are not too old.
