There is a post in perimenopause forum belittling those experiencing symptoms because the poster didn’t experience them.

Real menopause is finally being addressed in media. Amanda Peet - thank you!

It is very hard to get pregnant at 39. It is also hard to raise kids older.

Teenager hormones at same time as menopause is horrible. Not at all funny. A house in crisis.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went for my yearly visit and she was very frank about it needing to happen soon. She apologized for being pushy but said the chances of chromosomal abnormalities hits very hard at 40 and the curve goes up and up and up.

I was shocked or surprised given how many women I see online having children at 45+ in recent years. These being healthy children as well.

You’re 39 and you have to be told this?

You need to understand that many women believe what social media tells them and cannot discern truth from reality. I'm not criticizing, but I don't shy away from the harsh truth either. We do a horrible job of educating our daughters.

One of the saddest/most infuriating fertility stories I ever heard was from a friend's coworker - she married in late 20s, waited a few years to start trying, was having irregular periods, finally saw the fertility doctor. Found out she was in really early menopause. Told her mother - mom says, oh, yes, I went into menopause in my early 30s. THIS IS INFORMATION A YOUNG WOMAN NEEDS TO KNOW EARLY.

That's extreme. But, just generally, women need straight talk about the declines in fertility after 35.

I (a woman in my 30s) have always had a touchy relationship with my mother re: body stuff and fertility, partly because I had an eating disorder as a teen growing up in a very fatphobic household and also because she started pressuring me for a baby/grandchild when I was in my 20s. For years I simply would not engage with her on these topics at all to protect my own peace.

However!! I realized a few years ago that I was just totally missing critical health-related info - your mother’s fertility and hormonal history is just as important as her cancer history. It is not predictive, of course, but it’s useful info.

I literally made a script and sat down and asked her:

-did you have issues becoming pregnant?
-how were your births? Postpartum depression? What helped?
-when did you first have menopause symptoms? What were they? What helped?

My family is neurodivergent and has lots of other issues, so stuff like this needs to be spelled out very explicitly. Not easy to calmly broach the subjects but highly worth it. Of course it did devolve at times into her saying “I had three miscarriages and you’re already too old to get pregnant!” But at this point I can detach better from her anxiety while also recognizing the realities of my own timelines. It also gave me a clearer perspective on the origins of her anxieties - three miscarriages must have been heartbreaking.

If you are an older woman, please please consider delivering the above info to your adult daughters in a calm, nonjudgmental way (“I’m not pushing you to have a baby right now; but, here’s my info in case you want to know”) just so they are aware. It would be a gift.

This is an OLD THREAD. Previous posters are probably not monitoring it.

Hahahahahaha.

OP come on! Do you know nothing about life!

I'm a mom of two who were born when DH and I were 41 and 43. Having gone through becoming a parent at a late age and seeing most of my friends who decided to have kids as well, I originally very much like you do but have learned so much. Nearly everyone I know who had children in their late 30s or early 40s needed help from a fertility clinic. Probably half did IVF while others were able to get pregnant from an IUI, clomid or other method. Almost all my women friends had some pregancy complication - premature birth, pre-eclampsia, gestational diabetes. I can assure you that when you see women in their mid 40s having healthy children they likely went through many IVF cycles, used frozen embryos or frozen eggs, or embryo adoption. A natural pregnancy in your 40s is very likely to end in miscarriage (I had 2); a natural pregnancy resulting in a live birth after age 43 is very rare. I do know a couple people who were born to older moms this age or older but they were the last child of large Catholic families...their moms were very fertile in the first place.
Also - my clinic told me their success rate (meaning a live birth of a healthy baby) for women 40-42 was 16%. They told me they thought my odds were more like 35-40% because my hormone levels were much better than average for women my age. On fertility forums women who are successful in their 40s may chime in a lot, but the ones where it never worked out are not likely to be lurking in fertility threads afterwards. What you see on DCUM is much more likely the lucky ones.
So get on it OP if it's important to you. The decline of fertility at 39 is STEEP and REAL.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went for my yearly visit and she was very frank about it needing to happen soon. She apologized for being pushy but said the chances of chromosomal abnormalities hits very hard at 40 and the curve goes up and up and up.

I was shocked or surprised given how many women I see online having children at 45+ in recent years. These being healthy children as well.

You’re 39 and you have to be told this?

You need to understand that many women believe what social media tells them and cannot discern truth from reality. I'm not criticizing, but I don't shy away from the harsh truth either. We do a horrible job of educating our daughters.

One of the saddest/most infuriating fertility stories I ever heard was from a friend's coworker - she married in late 20s, waited a few years to start trying, was having irregular periods, finally saw the fertility doctor. Found out she was in really early menopause. Told her mother - mom says, oh, yes, I went into menopause in my early 30s. THIS IS INFORMATION A YOUNG WOMAN NEEDS TO KNOW EARLY.

That's extreme. But, just generally, women need straight talk about the declines in fertility after 35.

I got married at 31 and my gyn was blunt with me about age and fertility. She said it was best to have a baby before 35 if we could. Ended up having #1 at 33. Then had an oops #2 when #1 was only 7 mos old. I was kind of freaked out but OB thought it was great - I'd had an easy first pregnancy and in your 30s earlier is better than later.

This "Birthgap" documentary is about worldwide declining birthrates and one of the findings it shares is that, for the most part, the decline is not people not wanting children, but wanting to wait longer to be more established in career, finances, relationships. That is all 100% reasonable. But when the average age for first child gets pushed up higher and higher, a significantly larger segment of the population will run up against fertility problems. So, while more people are proactively choosing not to have kids, many childless older people want them and erroneously think they can just wait longer.
https://youtu.be/m2GeVG0XYTc?si=umy9jdCvdvKNni1v

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went for my yearly visit and she was very frank about it needing to happen soon. She apologized for being pushy but said the chances of chromosomal abnormalities hits very hard at 40 and the curve goes up and up and up.

I was shocked or surprised given how many women I see online having children at 45+ in recent years. These being healthy children as well.

You’re 39 and you have to be told this?

You need to understand that many women believe what social media tells them and cannot discern truth from reality. I'm not criticizing, but I don't shy away from the harsh truth either. We do a horrible job of educating our daughters.