Anyone meet their spouse after 40 and go on to have biological children?

[Anonymous]

My friend is getting divorced and she is almost 42. She is devastated. I think most devastating of all is that she wants her own biological children. It seems unlikely that she will meet someone at age 42-43, get engaged, married and have a biological child with her own eggs.

She is not in a good enough financial situation to have a child on her own. She doesn’t want to be a stepmom or adopt or use donor eggs one day. Maybe she will change her mind in the future.

Just wondering if anyone met their partner after age 40. And I mean meet, not marry at 40 or have a baby at 40.

[Anonymous]

My aunt did. But she needs to treat dating like a full time job, do a lot of soul searching about why her marriage ended and be very open to men who aren't "perfect". It's literally not possible to find an attractive, successful, kind and normal man in his forties who doesn't have baggage of some sort. And if that man exists he doesn't want to marry a 40 year old. She can have kids! She just needs to get on it ASAP.

[Anonymous]

My close friend did. Married at 40.5, baby at 42 after IVF at a top-notch clinic. But it is different for every woman at those ages.

[Anonymous]

Anything is possible - BUT, it will be much easier if she can accept being a stepmom in addition to hopefully having her own kids. Most men that age have been married or partnered before and do have kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anything is possible - BUT, it will be much easier if she can accept being a stepmom in addition to hopefully having her own kids. Most men that age have been married or partnered before and do have kids.

The widowed or divorced handsome successful and overall good catches I know don’t want more children but that is my limited group of friends. And their divorces are relatively new (<5 years).

[Anonymous]

I had a friend who did, but we are in the Midwest and men seem more keen to settle down.

Her husband is not super attractive (he’s bald and very nerdy and probably average looking at best) and he’s also not rich (has a normal middle class job).

They seem super happy together.

They met and were engaged within 8 months, married a few months after that, pregnant right away.

To her credit-she was decisive and available (ie-not sleeping with an FWB or messing with some ex or married men or hot young guys who didn’t want to settle down).

In the words of Dan Savage-there ain’t no settling down without some settling for.

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine had 4 kids without any fertility help. The last 2 of the 4 were at 42 and 45. All kids are healthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A friend of mine had 4 kids without any fertility help. The last 2 of the 4 were at 42 and 45. All kids are healthy.

Having your first biological child after 40 (without fertility treatments) is much less likely than what you describe, so not really relevant for op’s friend, I’m afraid. Basically if you don’t use it your body shuts it down sooner.

Op, tell your friend to go to an RE and get a work up to find out what her chances are. They will give her specific info about her body like egg counts and help her figure out what her next options might be. Information is power.

To be honest her own egg chances are already only 4% at age 43, even with Ivf. Donor egg though is still very possible.

[Anonymous]

I know someone who married at 42 and has 3 biological children of her own but she is a unicorn!

[Anonymous]

She needs to work on healing from her divorce first. I know her clock is ticking, but there is a reason her first marriage ended and jumping into something new is not a good idea.

[Anonymous]

You can't have everything you want in life. I hope that doesn't sound cruel because I don't mean it to- I just mean that she needs to prioritize because the likelihood of biological children, WITH a partner, AND that partner has no children- that's slim. So she needs to decide what of those things is most important to her. Carrying a child? Carrying her own biological child? Having a partner but maybe not having a biological child? She needs to redefine what happiness will mean to her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know someone who married at 42 and has 3 biological children of her own but she is a unicorn!

Triplets? Twins followed any another baby 9 months later?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A friend of mine had 4 kids without any fertility help. The last 2 of the 4 were at 42 and 45. All kids are healthy.

Having your first biological child after 40 (without fertility treatments) is much less likely than what you describe, so not really relevant for op’s friend, I’m afraid. Basically if you don’t use it your body shuts it down sooner.

Op, tell your friend to go to an RE and get a work up to find out what her chances are. They will give her specific info about her body like egg counts and help her figure out what her next options might be. Information is power.

To be honest her own egg chances are already only 4% at age 43, even with Ivf. Donor egg though is still very possible.

This is not true. I gave birth just after turning 43. I had no problem getting pregnant. I was lectured by a whacko doctor at 38, he told me if I wanted kids I needed to go on fertility drugs ASAP. I was newly married at the time and we didn’t know if we wanted kids. Fast forward 4 years to conceive naturally and have an easy pregnancy.

The statistics that the medical community bases the conception mis information off of is from 1970s and the research stopped at women over 35. Women are having kids later and fertility treatments are better. My advice to your friend is to freeze her eggs. Also, date a younger guy?

[Anonymous]

She is just getting divorced and is almost 42?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I know someone who married at 42 and has 3 biological children of her own but she is a unicorn!

Triplets? Twins followed any another baby 9 months later?

I think you missed the part about being a unicorn and hence the point of the message.