Reply to Does anyone feel a responsibility to dispell the myth that you can wait until almost 40 to have kids

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[quote=Anonymous]The thread about telling people about infertility made me think about this question.  My field is academic research. I didn't get a faculty position until I was 37 which is actually on the faster side of the mean in my field.  Once I got my position I started building my family.  I always dreamed about having two children.  I was lucky and had the first right away but 2 years later when I tried for the second I could no longer make an egg with the right number of chromosomes.  Now 3 years later I am in the middle of yet another miscarriage.

Having a child during the training period would seriously make it harder to be competitive for a faculty position.  But waiting until you have a position to start having children is not really a smart thing either since at this time most women are 35-40 years old.  My field is full of women that either had children late or not at all.  And it is taken for granted that one should wait and that there is no problem with waiting.

Sometimes when people ask at work whether I will have another child I tell them that I am too old.  Their response is always "people have children into their 40s all the time, look at so and so" They don't realize that so and so was lucky.  That over half of women in their early 40s are infertile. 
 
I mentor young female scientists every day.  I am conflicted about whether I should also mention to them about the consequences of waiting.  From the outside it seems that I've made the right decision to wait to start my family but that is not the real story.  [/quote]

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