I’ve heard various explanations for why some women who were not particularly interested (or in some cases actively against) having kids change their minds later in life and get “baby fever”, and in some situations go to extraordinary lengths to have kids.
What precipitates this change? Is it a brain chemistry thing where your body is telling you to have kids, or your social context where all your peers are having kids? Or what?
For me, it certainly felt chemical. Only one of my friends had a baby, and none of the others had any plans to. I was 30 with clockwork-regular periods, not “running out of time” or anything. I was just simply overwhelmed with the desire to be pregnant after 12 years of being perfectly fulfilled as the mother of a single (unplanned) child with plans to never have another, ever.
I think “not particularly interested” means that one is still considering. Women like me who were always “no way in hell am I having kids.” tend to stay that way for life.
If you are still considering, and you’re getting into your late thirties, you realize that yes, the time is now if I want to. Many women will decide that they want to.
I turned 40 this summer and always wanted children but for whatever reason (some luck, mostly never having been in a relationship leading to marriage) haven’t ended up procreating. I do not believe I have that biological clock I keep hearing about so I guess if it is chemical, I’m broken. Perhaps I’m not old enough, but I doubt that’s it. Perhaps it’s because there are no suitable prospects, but I don’t think that’s it either. I have had a few offers from male friends to enter into some sort of arrangement, but I certainly don’t feel compelled to do so.
If my biological clock ever starts ticking I will smash it up until it stops.
That being said, if you think about it, chances of a problem with having a baby start rising at 36 and they rise dramatically every year. By leaps and bounds as a matter of fact. So you have women who delayed childbirth, voluntarily or involuntarily and then they reach their 30s and they realize how short time really is.
I was actually at a healthcare meeting last week where this very thing was discussed - basically that we talk a lot about preventing teen pregnancy, but we don’t also tell women that unfortunately, biology limits child-bearing years. You can say what you want, you can say women can have babies at 40 or whenever they want, but the fact remains that the chances of a birth defect or prematurity ratchet right up there. So women need to be educated and know, so they have the choice, or perhaps plan their families. I mean, “Family Planning” is a thing. It doesn’t just mean abortion and birth control, it also means having children when you do want them.
It was chemical for me. My friends all had children, but there lives appeared chaotic and stressful, and I was definitely not motivated by their example. Around 37 I started thinking about having children. By 39 I was aching for one. Conceived on the first and only try at age 41, so it seems I was paying attention to my body’s signals that it was time to conceive. (Yes, risks were high, but baby is healthy and strong.)
Glad to hear it!
I never wanted kids. At age 40, I married a great man, 10 years younger than myself. He did want a child. I’m not sure if it was chemical or social (my brother’s 2 adorable daughters definitely helped), but here I am, nearly 26 weeks pregnant at age 43. Baby is doing great - measuring 2 weeks ahead!
As far as my advanced maternal age, I did try to get pregnant for 2 years and had 3 miscarriages. Genetic testing on one miscarriage showed a genetic fluke not related to my age, other 2 were not tested.
I’ve had a blissfully healthy pregnancy - my blood pressure remains low (100/60), no swelling, sailed through the glucose test for gestational diabetes, no horrible aches/pains (I read a lot of pregnancy forums and women half my age write horrid tales of pregnancy woes). We had the early CVS test to check for chromosomal abnormalities and found no issues (this was a big concern for us).
The baby did try some escape antics at week 22, so I stayed overnight in the hospital and I’m on procardia to relax the uterus and prevent contractions. I have weekly checkups and all is well!
I read a study that showed women who give birth in their late 40s tend to live longer. The study was unsure if it was the late blast of hormones that added to longevity or is it that a woman that can ovulate in her 40s is just healthier and likely to live longer in general. I thought it was interesting.
Probably some of both. Intellectually I have never, ever wanted children, but from time to time up to my early 40s I went through periods of hormonally wanting them. Fortunately my husband had a vasectomy at 33 so I never was tempted to “oh, just go ahead”. At 50, I am very happy to be past all that.
There was a lot of pressure to have kids, both by example and an upbringing that assumed females would breed early and often. Realizing and admitting that I really, sincerely did not want children was like when I realized and admitted that I was an atheist in that it had been in the back of my mind for years before I shook off my upbringing enough to bring it to the fore.
Not necessarily. I used to be all “FUCK NO” and now I’m seriously considering it. It may be chemistry, part of it is certainly that I’m marrying a man who would be a great father, so there’s a lot of factors.
Could it possibly mean that women just change their mind, and are neither mindless hormone robots nor oppressive social conformists? You know, the same things that motivate men to one day take off that condom and try to make a kid?
As you get older, you realize you are probably not going to be the rockstar/war journalist/trapeze artist you thought would preclude you from being a great mother, and in fact your life is shaping up to be one that could fit kids in pretty well. Once you thought kids would keep you from your happy life of dancing all night and doing whatever, but eventually you realize your club kid days are over anyway. Maybe you’ve coupled up and it’s looking long term, but the thought of it being just you two for decades seems kind of lonely. Things are settling down and you are getting established, and maybe it’s getting a little boring. You start thinking about new challenges.
In the meantime, your parents are getting older and you are realizing that soon enough, you will be in the same place. It would be nice to have family around when you are older, wouldn’t it? A hipster thanksgiving in your friend’s NYC studio seems fun and adventurous at 25, but at 30 you may start missing having a real thanksgiving with a family. You start realizing what your mom found so fun about raising you.
It just all kind of starts to come together.
Sometimes it’s neither social nor chemical - it’s just a matter of moving on to a different stage in life, and being interested in new things. And it’s not just women - the same thing happens to guys.
People get to a certain point and realize they can’t pretend to be 22 for the rest of their lives. Or that they no longer really want to.
And yet Gwen Stefani, Christiane Amanpour and …oh I don’t know…I sure some of those Cirque de Soleil chicks managed to crank out some kids.
Certainly there are women who were adamantly against their having children, and who subsequently changed their minds. However, there are also a considerable number like me who never once wanted children even a little bit, and have remained so convinced.
I just don’t believe that there’s some chemical switch that turns on once you reach a certain age that blares in your mind “iwannababy, iwannababy, iwannababy…” And all the little smiles and knowing winks from people who say, “Oh, you’ll change your mind someday…” get really irritating after awhile.
Or rather, they got really irritating. Now that I just turned 50 yesterday, I don’t guess I’ll be hearing them much anymore. Thank heaven.
“I just don’t believe that there’s some chemical switch”
Hormones are chemical switches. You go from a kid w no sexual urges and the hormones start pumping and suddenly the kid you played with is ‘cute’.
I was the no kids no way woman … still am …
But for a couple years after 40 all of a sudden I’d find myself smiling at a cute baby, A baby in the room would catch my eye. It’s behavior I saw in my sister but never before in myself.
A few times I volunteered to hold someone’s baby – that never used to happen.
…It’s starting to fade.
I had one baby at 29. 13 and 14 years later nothing about my life was conducive to introducing an infant. My relationship was anywhere between rocky and awful, I didn’t intellectually, practically or consciously WANT a baby but I had fierce “baby pangs” for a lot of that time. So, I believe there is a chemical biological component. I hadn’t expected to be overwhelmed by the “clock ticking” because I’d had a pregnancy. I was incorrect.
In my opinion, someone who says “seeing X or Y’s cute, well behaved children made me want my own” was always open to the idea of children. They might have had thoughts like “only with the right guy” or “only if my career is stable” or “having kids is such a big, scary responsibility, I don’t know if I could handle it” but underlying that there is a certain base level of interest in children. As opposed to people who were uncertain about children, people who actually did not want children, don’t change their minds. Nothing about children interests them at all.
Minus the pregnancy, I was the same way. The “baby pang” period first hit me when I was in my mid 30s, peaked when I was 40-ish, and slowly dwindled through my 40s as my perimenopause symptoms decided to accelerate.
I was never 100% against having children, but I always knew on some level that I’d never give birth. The irony is that everybody in my family knew that about me before I realized it.
Huh? So women who don’t want kids are trying to remain perpetually 22 years old?
I don’t know…I went 40 years never wanting children. I never dreamed of getting married and having kids, I never visualized a child in my arms, never baby sat, never spent time with children or imagined doing things with a kid. I would have said I was a “nothing about children interests me” person. I didn’t want kids, had zero interest.
And here I am! About to embark on the craziest, life changing adventure. I honestly have no idea what happened, but possibly some biological clock ticking factored in.