I can’t have kids naturally but there is still a hypothetical that fits this for me.
Our kids have two half-siblings out in the world. If they ever become Crown Wards (which is not that unlikely), we will be asked if we want to adopt them.
While I like only having two kids, keeping them with their siblings is too important for me not to say yes if it happens even if it is ten years from now (granted they wouldn’t be babies but dealing with kids who have been removed is almost as energy intensive).
I’m 41 and my only child is now 19. I remarried a few years ago, my husband has no children. There have been a lot of hormonal moments of “what-if” on my part, were we ten years younger I’d have liked to have made a baby with him. He’s 44 and never wanted kids, we’re pretty diligent about BC.
So it’d be off to the clinic right away, but there’d be some serious sighing on my part.
I’d be another who would expect a new star rising in the east that followed me everywhere (or whatever that story is) in as much as all the necessary parts went into some hospital disposal unit decades ago.
But if it had happened before that, I’d have said “Oh, well, here we go again,” and would probably have enjoyed it.
My father’s mother didn’t even get married until she was near 40, and it was expected that she would never have children. After my father was born, they all said she’d never have another. She proceeded to have two more. That was back in the very early 20th century. My earlies memories of that grandmother are of a wiry, grey-haired ancient woman.
I was influenced long ago on this topic by a woman that I worked for as a mother’s helper. When her first child was eight years old this mom became pregnant at forty-two. I started working for her when the younger girl was a year old. I can’t tell you how often the mom would say “Gwen, I am too old for this!” I was nineteen or twenty and had no concept of what being too old for anything would be like. Now that I’m forty-three I cannot imaging keeping up with a toddler (and an older child and a full-time job and a marriage).
That mom confided in me that she and her husband had undergone of litany of fertility treatments ten and nine years earlier. They had such difficulty conceiving the first one that they never really put much effort into birth control after she was born.
I struggle to support my teenage son as it is. I don’t know what kind of life I could make for a new baby. I’d choose giving the baby for adoption. But unlike in my first pregnancy I’d have the amnio and would terminate the pregnancy if there was a significant chance of the baby having profoundly special needs. I think. Maybe. I really don’t know.
I’d be thrilled. It took us YEARS to have a successful pregnancy, and so we’re still in little kid mode.
Other factors are that we have a lot of friends in our peer group who, for whatever reason – some were medical and others were people waiting to get to a certain point in careers or relationships – waited a bit to have kids. So we have plenty of friends about our age with small children. Most are not quite as young as ours, but in the same age range (under 5).
It helps too that it doesn’t seem as unusual where we live (New York City). My brother, who also had kids later in life, was mentioning that where he lives, he’s REALLY an outlier. Here, we were not the oldest parents in our birthing class at the hospital – we were definitely in the older HALF, but not at the top of it.
I think this is easy for me to say because I certainly wanted a baby and was disappointed not to have one a bit earlier, but I focus on the fact that IT ALL WORKED OUT and we have an awesome baby and I’m not dying of exhaustion or feeling overwhelmed. I like to say that I saved up all my energy in my 20s and early 30s by sleeping in all the time, and now I have a lot in reserve. Another nice thing is that I’m in a point in my career where I have more autonomy and can be more flexible with my schedule, and have more disposable income which certainly makes a lot of potential issues a lot smoother.
I’d like to add a reminder that people have healthy babies later in life all the time. It is true that the risks of health issues increase, and those health issues are serious and significant and potential parents should definitely educate themselves about these risks. But I feel like the media and today’s “common knowledge” make it seem as the default is that older mothers have unhealthy babies. That is not at all true. More babies born to older mothers have health conditions than babies born to younger mothers, but of babies born to older mothers, most are healthy and do not have serious genetic or other medical conditions.
I got a table of chances of chromosome abnormalities when I had my CVS. I decided that, if there was less than a 95% chance of having a baby without chromosome abnormalities, that was too risky for me. I think that happens at around 44 or 45 (I don’t have the table in front of me right now). Someone who’s less risk-averse in general (I want to buy earthquake insurance, and I live in Pittsburgh, just to give you an idea how risk-averse I am), or less averse to the idea of having a child with a chromosome abnormality, might make that cutoff in a different place than I would.
I’ve been tired by the end of the week since I was 13 or so. Having a kid when I was “young and energetic” was never a possibility for me, since there are some other problems with having kids that young.
I have a 2.5 week old right now, so the hormone storm that’s replaced my brain is imagining doing this in 15 years and is horrified. That being said, it would depend on our circumstances and health at that point. It might be fun, but I’d feel weird about being that old and having a kid. I’m in my early thirties now and I feel old to be starting a family.
I worked with a woman who got married quite young, about 20, and never was able to have kids. She and her husband had three dog “babies”, on vacation went on trips in their RV, and led the good life. In her mid-40’s she was astonished to find out that she was pregnant, and it was a really tough transition, but she had a healthy baby girl. A year or so later - guess what??? Pregnant AGAIN, another healthy baby girl. They all seem pretty happy, but what a shocking change in their lives having two unexpected kids late in life!..Myself, I had the one in my mid-30’s and the doctors scared me senseless because they said there was an excellent chance my future bundle o’ joy would have some awful genetic condition. She was fine, but I didn’t want to take a chance having another. I suppose if I DID get pregnant in my late 40’s, I would have had it as my husband is just to the right of Rick Santorum. But I’d make it clear we were in this thing together and it wasn’t all my fault if we produced a defective model.
I’m forty, no children, single, unemployed, and spend the majority of my time taking care of my Stage 5 Alzheimer’s father. I am not childless by choice. I can’t imagine having sex at this point unless it was a man I trusted to help if I hit the flabbergasting baby lottery.
If at all possible, I’d have and keep the baby. If amnio or other tests showed abnormalities, I’d abort. If the pregnancy threatened my health, I’d make the best decision I could, balancing the risk against how much I would love to be a mother. If the father weren’t available for support, and I were still in the economic straits I’m currently in, I’d look into an open adoption.
I would have been happy, but then it’s because I was unable to have another child after my son was born.
My stepson had a 23-year-old daughter and his second wife had a 14-year-old and a 19-year-old sons when she became pregnant (unexpectedly). After some trepidation, they decided to go ahead with the pregnancy. She miscarried. They had been so happy, at the thought of a baby that they went ahead and she got pregnant again. Leanne is now 4 years old, a bright, beautiful, energetic little girl who is just a bit pampered by all the grown-ups in her life.
Oddly enough, her parents seem to have grown younger with her around.
I’m already childless by choice at 44 and all my plumbing has been gone for a while, but if it weren’t, I’d abort. The reasons would be the same as why I never had any in the first place… one, my mother would be unacceptably toxic and, two, I have no desire to possibly pass on my genetic mental health issues. It’d be best for everyone if I didn’t continue any pregnancy.
I (with great misgivings) had a kid at 39. By the time I figured out that a sibling for our little prince might not be such a bad idea, it was too late to bother giving the idea serious thought. I’m not at all sorry he’s an only child, and if I had it to do over again, starting with his birth when I was almost 40, I am not at all sure I’d do it any differently. But if fate dumped an unexpected pregnancy on me? Well, knowing what a joy said prince has been, I’d figure that fate had bestowed on me a great gift.
Well I had at least three separate tests that indicated he was normal as could be, but if the test had been wrong I probably would have sued. (If they had been wrong about the specific things they were testing for; you can’t test for everything, and stuff can always go wrong during delivery, too.) Can’t really say what would have happened to the kid. My first thought in the case of Downs would be send him to a home, or relinquish–there are people who don’t mind raising defective babies. But who knows, I might have fallen in love with him however he was.
What is really odd is that, old as I was, I have never, not once, been the oldest parent in his class.
Horrified, especially at first. By the time I was in my early 40s, my son had been diagnosed with autism, my daughter was hell to live with, my own health had been threatened with the pregnancy, the health condition (pre-eclampsia) might well recur, and some other health issues (severe ongoing fatigue) were making it pretty tough to function on a daily basis.
So yeah, there’s a very good chance I’d have terminated - and felt guilty over that for years.
I’m 42, have a 13 yr. old, a 10 yr. old, and a 6 yr. old. My first child died at four months due to a chromosomal syndrome.
I had a tubal ligation at age 37, when youngest was 1 and I realized with great clarity that I was DONE. I rarely pass a day where I don’t think how great it is that they’re all getting older and my life is constantly getting easier.
But I wouldn’t have an abortion. A baby is a baby to me, born or unborn. If I found out I was pregnant (and it is, of course, possible even if you’ve had a tubal), I would be dismayed but I would figure it was MEANT TO BE and carry on. I’d look forward to the delightful euphoria that birth has always given me (birth, not labor) and the amazing falling in love that has come with each baby.
This reminded me of something I read in People magazine about clinics that help older women conceive, and I think the oldest one they mentioned was 64. So help me, 64! Honestly, I think anyone who thinks being pregnant at 64 is a good idea might not be the best judge of appropriate parenting, let alone the best judge of their own best interests…but what do I know?
So anyway, I couldn’t find the People article, but here is a link to a story about a woman in England who got pregnant on purpose at 59.
