I think we’re focusing on the obesity not to pick on you, but because it’s the one sticking point in your OP that you, personally, can do something about. Your husband’s reluctance? Nothing you can do about that, really. Not sure if you can afford it? Well, realistically, neither is anyone - even rich people suffer devastating financial accidents. But not being in good physical shape? Ah, THERE’S something that you and only you can do something to change. While it’s going to take some time to change, in the meantime you sock away some extra money and hope your husband comes around. (Or that the extra money you’ve saved and your obvious care and dedication to the proposition - as evidenced by all the hard work you’ve done getting in shape - might help to convince him that the two of you can handle it.) So there are at least two reasons to wait - your husband doesn’t want this yet, and you’re probably not best phsically equipped at the moment - and one reason that can only improve with time - making a bigger nest egg so you can choose to spend more time with your baby. In a balance sheet with all that, a maternal age of 34-35 is not a problem.
**fessie **just listed some concrete complications of obesity during pregnancy and early motherhood. In addition, an obese woman is much more likely to require a c-section for actual medical reasons - most of those emergency c-sections, which are riskier medically than planned ones. In fact, c-sections are so much more needed in obese patients that some doctors say it’s obesity, and not overcautious doctors, that is causing our c-section rate to go through the roof in this country: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=61932
They and their babies are also much more likely to suffer complications and die or face long term disability from those c-sections. Think about your body mass and how much more anesthetic you’ll require than a thinner woman. Your baby, at 9ish pounds, is also getting more anesthetic than the thinner women’s 9 pound baby. That’s not good for APGAR scores or antenatal prognosis. Mechanically, cutting through those extra layers of fat takes longer, increasing the time of the operation (which in turn increases chances of infection, anesthetic dose and reaction possibility, etc.). They often have to make a larger cut, which increases the number of staples, the area that can get infected, the number of muscle fibers severed, which makes recovery harder. You’re more prone to blood clots, which can cause embolism or strokes.
Now let’s say you’re lucky and you don’t have to be c-sectioned. Instead you get the vaginal birth of your dreams. Except you’ll likely need to be induced - again, that pesky estrogen masks the hormone signal telling your uterus to start contracting to open the cervix. A pitocin drip, while it’s not the end of the world, is also no freakin’ fun. It hurts a lot more than a natural labor. But the more important thing is that labor is like running a marathon. I know it looks like you just lay there gasping, but remember you’re gasping because a huge portion of your muscles are contracting really strongly, and holding that contraction for a minute or more, and then doing it again three minutes later - for 18 hours or more. And AFTER that, the actual pushing starts! Could you lift a watermelon onto a countertop and then put it back down on the floor every three minutes for 18 hours straight, no breaks, and then carry two watermelons while running around the block for an hour? Labor is more work than that. It’s simply unlikely that you’ve got the physical strength and stamina to do it without spiking your blood pressure (c-section), being so exhausted at the end of it that you can’t push (c-section), or pushing weakly, causing the baby’s heart rate to drop (c-section).
No, a c-section isn’t the end of the world. Any way a healthy baby gets here is worth celebrating. But see above re: complications more likely to you and your baby in an emergency c-section.
I’m not saying you have to lose *all *your excess weight to make things safer for you and your baby. I got pregnant at a good 60 pounds over my ideal weight, and it did make things harder and a little more risky - but not as hard and risky as if I’d been 150 pounds over my ideal weight.
Pregnancy is also hard on your bones, your joints, your ligaments, your circulatory system - and those are probably taxed to their breaking point in your body. Being fat and pregnant was just a whole lot harder physically than when I was thin and pregnant. I only got to my fifth month with my second pregnancy, and I had trouble moving comfortably - with my thinner pregnancy, I was limber and moving boxes and shoveling snow the day I delivered at 9 months!
Obesity can cause huge breastfeeding problems. Again, that estrogen screws things up for you with prolactin production, so your milk supply suffers. I know I’ve posted about my nursing/pumping problems before, so I won’t bore you with the details. Chances are very good that my obesity contributed a great amount to those struggles. One thing is certain - my nipples and areolas were simply too large for my daughter to get into her mouth and make a good latch. Now, I don’t know a whole lot about nipples, so maybe just because you’re overweight doesn’t mean you have large nipples, but mine grew with my weight gain and with my pregnancy, so it’s a distinct possibility.
If I had to do it over again, I would have put off getting pregnant for a year and gotten myself into a better shape first - not ideal shape, but better. At least I would have been in a better position to deal with the complicated micropreemie mess that I faced after my emergency c-section, and if I had an exercise program in place already, I might not have gained so much weight AFTER my pregnancy (yeah, I gained 12 pounds while pregnant and probably 50 afterwards, due to stress, crappy hospital food, eating for comfort and trying to make more milk.)