Fertility

[dancerjodi]

Lots of thoughtful stuff here http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/110861/how-older-parenthood-will-upend-american-society# . 

Comments

[goat.livejournal.com]

Eek, as an older mom who wants another I couldn't get through that. I really wish I had started earlier, but I didn't even know how much I'd love being a mother, and actually had some pretty negative views about it for a long time. Add that to being pretty messed up through my 20s, not even meeting hubs until I was 27, and a miscarriage, how could I have even started much earlier?

[dancer.livejournal.com]

Tell me about it. I'm older than you, so I fall into that 'waited too long, not having any more and that's less than I planned on' camp that they mention. I just don't want to be "old" and chasing around a young child. IMO, not fair to the child.

I'm hoping to be healthy and around for a long time. I've enjoyed having parents who are (relatively) young, but seeing my friends deal with their parent's health issues, is a bit of a picture of what Mina may need to deal with, with Brian and I.

Brian and I could surely have tried earlier, but we didn't think we wanted to back then. Then, it took time for he and I to catch up with each other. By the time we started trying, it took us 2 years (1 with serious medical intervention). Thankfully, so far, all looks good with that though.

[futurenurselady.livejournal.com]

I read this article on another site.

I don't see how this is much different than families from past decades who have had several children with wide age-ranges.

Add to that the fact that most people having children later are pretty aware of their health as a matter of course in order to conceive and carry a child, and the extending life expectancy starting with Gen X, and my concerns are way less than the author's.

[dancer.livejournal.com]

Well, the big diff is that folks started younger, so they were able to have several children. My great grandmother started at 15 and had 19 kids. If she started at 45, she only would have had 1 or 2.

As an older Mom (I'll be 38 this summer) I can definitely see a lot of her points, though others I think are a stretch. Definitely something most folks don't talk about. The response I always got was "you are healthy, don't worry". There wasn't anything on paper wrong with either of us, but it did take 2 years and 1 of them with medical intervention to make our daughter. Had someone told me about this say 5 years ago, I may not have delayed as long.

[spitcurl.livejournal.com]

My ballpark for all of my adult life was, "If I'm 35, and not in a relationship/financial place where this looks like an option soon, I'll give up on having kids."

As it is, I didn't get married until 35. And when presented with the idea of RIGHT THEN, I thought, OH GODS NO! But I was not ready to give up the notion altogether either.

Since then, I've watched so many older friends become moms post-35, that I've cut myself some slack. I also watched 42 Up, one of the every 7 years documentaries, and saw how different lives changed over decades, some not even finding love/families until after 40. Who is to say what is best?

I have a friend who married in her early 20s, the youngest of 6 kids, who we all expected to be a mom first. Turns out they are infertile, and now at 37, after over a decade of trying, they are going through the lengthy adoption process. I'm so proud and happy for her. She'll be no less a mom than a biological one. I have another friend who just married/became a stepdad to two growing boys, a dad unexpectedly. Life is way more complicated and potentially awesome than we dream up for our future selves.

That said, I've watched my dad deal with trying to pry my younger sister out of the house for years, and is now retired, and can't get rid of her. Any kid of ours is getting a trunk at 16 to fill up with away from home supplies, and a 1-year post-high school buffer, to use when needed, either before college, after college, or a divorce, etc—up to a year at home as an adult, and no more. No adult freeloaders. I don't care what the economy is up to, they can go join the Peace Corps. ;)

And any said kids will also get a warning from us on the issues/costs of both waiting too long to breed, as well as breeding too early, to help them make sound choices.