I think everyone, including myself, knew what you meant, and I am happy to tell you that she conceived them the old fashioned way.
And thank you PinkShoes, and all the others here for your good wishes. My wife and I are ecstatic.
As I will be 39 next month, I would have to say at least to the age of mid forties, as long as mom and dad are healthy and open minded ( meaning not set in their ways.) and genetic testing done during pregnancy.
I’m almost 40 (Og, just a month or so away) and have a 15 month-old and a 4 year-old. I married @ 27 and wasn’t even sure that I wanted kids. When I first got pregnant by “trying” I had a miscarriage. I got pregnant again 3 weeks later. So, that tells me that a 35 y/o can still easily get pregnant. I did go for all the genetic testing, with an amnio at about 20 weeks. All was well and the birth and baby were perfect. Then the second child happened (mistake when I found out, “surprise” now) and we decided to go for the earlier genetic testing. I thought that with my advanced age it would certainly be easier to abort a 12 week old with genetic problems as opposed to a 20 week old. At 20 weeks, you’ve got a baby in there, not a blob of stuff you can’t recognize in a sonogram. Fortunately the procedure (while painful) worked perfectly and I again had a great birth and baby. I think perhaps baby #2 isn’t as smart as child #1, but time will tell.
I had no significant issues other than a bit of high blood pressure. It’s an individual choice.
Glad I misinterpreted you, PinkShoes; in some circles there’s a powerful bias against in-vitro twins. I’ve spoken with mommies who were told they couldn’t join “regular” twin groups.
And yes, the odds of twins are higher with AMA (Advanced Maternal Age).
I think the ideal time to have kids is when you’re young and healthy enough to have them and take of them without putting them or you at risk, but old enough to provide them with a stable upbringing. But the thing is, life’s not ideal, and most parents and most kids seem to muddle through ok.
My grandma had my uncle at 47. It was completely natural - she mistook being pregnant for the menopause, at first - and he was a completely fit and healthy baby. In fact, he was healthier at birth than my mum had been, and grandma was 27 when she had mum. Gran’s still going strong at 83.
Conversely, mum had me at 22, and her other brother had his son at 20, and both myself and my cousin seem to have turned out ok, despite them having us at a relatively young age.
I suppose what I’m saying is that it has a lot more to do with the parents themselves than their age.
Don’t wait if you feel ready. It’s a whole lot of fun, and it’s a whole lot easier when your body is younger.
I’m 48 today and my 2 are 9 and 6. No longer sure why DH and I waited so long.
Being an “elderly primagravida” was odd, but both kids arrived fine notwithstanding the complications getting them here.
My mother recently became pregant again (her 3rd). The baby is now 3 and seems to be doing fine.
She was 47 when she conceived (naturally).
I don’t really mind older women having children. But I think menopause is a good time to stop. If you force out a baby through medical wizardry at an age where you’re fairly likely to bite the bullet before your kid even finishes with puberty then you’re just kidding yourself when you say it’s a good deal for them.
My wife was/is 41 when we adopted our son. We have talked about going through and adopting a 2nd child, but by the time the paperwork is done and we make our trips, she could be 43, so we’ve held off (although still talk about it now and then).
I do think that if you’re going to have kids in your 40s, you need to understand and be prepared for potential birth defects. My grandmother had my uncle when she was in her 40s. He was born with birth defects and has had to undergo numerous surgeries on his legs and hips to keep him walking, which he can barely do. The doctors have said his problems are the result of his mother’s age at his birth. On the other hand, while these problems have made his life difficult in some ways, I don’t think any of us think he shouldn’t have been born. How could we? We love him and couldn’t imagine our lives without him. He’s done a lot with his life despite (or because of, in some cases) his disabilities, and has a wife and two lovely children of his own.
Also, my sister had one baby when she was 26 and another at 33. She has told me that the birth was much, much easier with her first daughter. She also had more energy following the birth. I don’t know if that applies to everyone. YMMV, as usual.
This is exactly how old my grandfather was when his youngest daughter was born. And a few crass people at the time told him that he was crazy to have a kid at that age, and that he’d never live to see her grow up.
She was the joy of his life. They were amazingly close, and she cared for him well when his health declined. It is a good thing for both of them that this period of time was a short one after a very long life.
When we buried him, she was 37 years old.
So, we’re pretty much all agreed:
“When to have kids…it’s a personal choice!”
Incidentally, the rate of naturally conceived twins is also related to ethnicity, with a rate of 4/1000 births in Japan and 52/1000 births in Nigeria. The difference in rate is the difference in dizygous (non-identical) twins, with an almost constant 3/1000 rate of identical twins whatever the ethnicity.
My husband and I have been married for over (I actually typed ‘ever’ instead of ‘over’ - is that Freudian or what?) 5 years. We got married at 29 and, at first, didn’t want to have kids. We didn’t want to ruin a good thing. But a few years ago, we changed our minds. I was too overweight to conceive, after trying for about 8 months, we gave up. I lost weight and 3 months into trying, I’m pregnant.
At 35, we knew it had to happen soon because we know the risks and because we didn’t want to be too old when our child graduates from high school, college (god willing) and gets married and has kids. And since we’re “older”, we’re only having one. We don’t think we could have the energy for 2. Besides, why split our resources (financial and otherwise) between 2 when we can focus on 1?
The upside of being 35 is that this pregnancy is watched even more closely and I’ll get a 3D ultrasound paid for by insurance that will be used as a diagnostic tool, rather than pay out of pocket for one that’s for entertainment purposes.
God, how I hate that term. :mad:
Well it is a personal choice, but bear (ha ha!) in mind that that after 35 or so for women and 45 or so for men, it becomes more difficult and you have a greater likelihood of problems.
Yes, it is a personal choice. But there are a lot of things you have to take into account when having a late baby, whether planned or accident. Many of them have already been touched on, but I’m going to list them anyway.
—Is it reasonable to assume that you’ll still be in good health when the new baby gets older? Someone referenced David Letterman, and the possibility that he won’t live to see his youngest son graduate high school. No, I’m not decreeing that someone who’s already had heart surgery shouldn’t have another baby, but at the very least, you should make definite plans for the kid to be taken care of if anything happens to you. I mean, get stuff in writing, not just “My sister will probably take her in.”
—Is the community you live in conducive to children? Meaning, are there couples who are still in the baby-making stage, so your child is likely to have companions nearby? Or is mostly adult-oriented, because most people have already had their offspring? And if that’s the case, are the neighbors more likely to be the “Your son stepped on my lawn!!” type, or the “Sure, I’ll babysit for you; I hardly ever see my own grandkids!” type?
—If you have grown or almost-grown children, please don’t measure your youngest against them. He’s going to be a product of a different generation, so it’s pointless to say, “Your brothers never did anything like that” or “Your sister never had one of those”. He doesn’t know or care what his siblings did; he cares about what’s happening now.
—And how about those older siblings? Are they financially independent, or likely to be so when the youngest is old enough to need stuff like braces? Are they managing their own lives, or are they likely to turn up on your doorstep when they have a crisis? Do they get along with you and you with them? And if not, try not to take resentment out on the youngest and make an exercise of him, like you’re going to undo everything that went wrong with his siblings.
—And how is this child going to fit in with an already-established family? Sure, everyone likes to ooh and aah over a baby, but when the novelty wears off, sometimes that leaves a pretty darn lonely kid. It’s mostly up to the parents to make sure that the youngest is integrated into family gatherings, not shunted off to his room as soon as the grownups show up. There are a lot of adult siblings of children who have been conditioned to regard those children as more like the neighbor’s kids, rather than family members, like they’re always “hanging around” while the family is trying to visit with each other. The youngest is a member of the family, and he’s not out of line for wanting to spend time with the Grown-Ups. It’s actually more fun and rewarding to have a younger sibling who looks up to you, rather than to keep punting him until he “gets the message”, and then he hates you, but too many people don’t see it that way.
(Note: I realize that the story in the linked thread is extreme. For others’ sake, I hope it hasn’t happened to too many people. But at the heart of the story is simply a pre-teen girl who wanted to spend time with her family, and was repeatedly told that they didn’t have time for her. It can happen, but it shouldn’t.)
That was me. I don’t think little Harry is going to be having any financial problems when he grows up.
It’s just that Dave seem so enamored of this child, it’s sad to think he may not see the boy graduate from high school. I’m sure this has gone through his mind more than once.
Well, my mom was 38 and my dad 49 when I was born. I’m an only child. (It was his second marriage and he was supposed to be infertile. Well, I wouldn’t have fallen for that line! 
) My dad is 74 now and not in the best of health, but then I’m an adult with my own house and a masters’ degree. I also got to do a lot of things as a kid that other kids didn’t - we traveled a lot, for example. There are advantages to being older in that you’re generally relatively wealthier than you were in your 20’s. You’ve got yourself all sorted out. You may be more likely to have the opportunity to stay home with them, if that’s what you want, and you’ve probably had enough free and single life in there beforehand to not resent it.
On the other hand, there were an awful lot of articles at the time about maternal age and Down’s syndrome that scared my mother to death when she was pregnant. If I hadn’t come out normal on the amnio, they probably would have aborted the fetus. There weren’t any complications, but there could have been, and my mom certainly didn’t take the risks lightly. I don’t think that if she’d had an active choice in the whole getting pregnant thing that she would have done it. (Which is not to say that she’s unhappy with the outcome, of course!)
It also depends on the age of the father of the children. While it was once thought that a man’s age was relatively unimportant in a child’s health and well being, it’s much has been written in recent years about higher incidents of birth defects (particularly mental) among children born to men in their mid fifties and older (and then add in the “a healthy man of 60 having a baby is going to be in his 80s when the kid graduates college” factor).
However, it’s also good to remember that while women over 35 and men over 55 tend to have more birth defects than younger parents, the vast majority of children born to them are healthy.
Holy crap! I’M 33!! My husband is 34!! I’m 8 weeks… Ooooo. Spooky!
AND… hubby and family have all appendages crossed going “Boy Boy BOY”
There are plenty of things that are personal choices and yet all the choices don’t have the same probability of a good outcome. There is certainly nothing wrong with discussing the consequences of those choices intelligently. In fact there needs to be more of that. The media makes it seem like any woman can have whatever she wants until forty and then have a kid or two just like she always wanted. That simply isn’t a realistic expectation for many, perhaps most women, and may lead the money and anguish spent on fertility treatments and the fact that the resulting child isn’t genetically the mother’s.
If you want to have kids, more time is better than less time any day.