So people can believe what they want helped them – their attitude, their herbs, etc. – and maybe those things did, but it worries me a little because it sounds like the things I heard for years – just relax and it’ll happen; when you’re not expecting it, it’ll happen. Just try XX and it’ll happen. In reality, if you hit a good egg that’s not chromosomally abnormal after 40 and especially after 42, you are insanely lucky. At a certain point, and for each of us that biology is different, no matter what you do, nothing will help. Young women need to be very conscious of the fertility decline if having biological children is important to them. As someone who is now 48 and on an adoption waiting list after ttcing with my own eggs at 42.10, then with donor eggs for two years, I wouldn’t want anyone to go through what I did. It’s important for young women to have the knowledge and information they need to make a good decision about their fertility and family planning. And not for them to think they’ll be that rare, lucky one who is the exception.

I was out to dinner a couple of weeks ago with some friends and one said to me – have you thought about whether it’s fair to the child to be older? I said to him, how fair is it to your five year old daughter (who he had at age 41) that she has to deal with your impending divorce and the fallout from that? It shut him up quickly.

It is always sad when someone loses a parent early. A friend of mine got married at 35 her husband was 40, they had one child and he got a brain tumor and died two years later. Another friend of mine is 48 and has cancer – he has kids in their late teens. A 35 yr old coworker’s husband cheated on her; she’s going through divorce and has two kids age 4 and 2. Another coworker’s husband (she’s 40) has mental illness – how fair is that to a child? She wanted a sibling for her child but because of her husband’s condition decided not to. Now her child won’t have a sibling because of this.

Really, the stories of unfairness are never ending. Yes, every choice has consequences. But sometimes life happens the way it does – people marry too young and get divorced which negatively impacts kids; people get married older and the kids have older parents or maybe lose a parent. I think everything happens for a reason. I will adopt the child I’m meant to adopt. I hope I will live to 90 like most of my family members, but I know I may not. In the meantime, as an older parent, I’m more emotionally prepared to be a parent at this age, I have more wisdom, more patience and more love to offer a child.

Thanks for the informative story!

Carolyn