So I (34F) recently made made the decision to break up with my ex because he turned out to be a terrible partner. Before him my ex of 6 years blindsided broke up with me in the process of buying a house together. Suffice to say i’m now quite worried about men not giving a second thought to wasting my fertile years as a woman.
I guess my question is what should I do about the future of my fertility? It really does make me so anxious. I really want children but I don’t want them with the wrong person. I feel like my is running out. All my friends either already have children or are pregnant…
I guess i’m looking for reassurance and to somehow take control over my future? Should I do some tests? Should I be panic?
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it’s more common to have kids in your thirties now, but I am so glad that you were able to leave your toxic partner, because you would have been trapped with a kid. I know many people who regret their choices that left them trapped. I even know someone who went through similar and settled for the first guy she found after and is now trapped with a kid. Don’t rush. I don’t know anyone who regretted waiting to have kids.
Consider seeking a medical opinion on freezing eggs. This can extend your years of potential childbearing and is covered by some insurances. Make sure to check out where the testing places your fertility level.
Consider if you need or want a partner to have children with. Single Mothers by Choice are a thing and are awesome. Too many people are not worthy partners and parents but that shouldn’t stop you from being a great parent if you choose.
I would suggest that you seriously look at your finances, work benefits (if you’re super lucky/not American), and check in with your mental health to see if you can afford to bank any eggs.
To do this, you’ll need a lot of cash and be prepared for lots of hormones (hence the mental health check). This should buy you some time (or options of surrogacy).
Of course, there are also kids available for adoption /fostering if you choose that route. No less expensive but another choice to make.
You just need to decide if you’re ok with single parenthood or if you would rather not.
If children are your goal you can be a single parent from the start.
38F and 13 weeks pregnant. Everything is healthy and we didn’t have any problems conceiving. I waited for the right person and am so glad that I did.
Perhaps consider having a child on your own, and then finding a suitable partner. It might take many years to find one. You might find one quickly enough, but it’s a big gamble and chances are slim. I’m 37 and had a similar experience to you relationship wise, blindsided by one and treated too badly to stay by others. I have found that there aren’t any good guys left at this age sadly. They sometimes come back round again but not for another decade or two when their current settled life comes to an end in some way. I looked into having a child on my own but decided against it due to my personal circumstance. If you can do it, it’s an option to think about.
Might sound depressing but if you’re like me, and always wanted children more than you wanted a husband anyway, it may be for you?
I know people are going to tell you to freeze your eggs but I personally am not an advocate of that. I know loads of women who have done it but depending on the country you’re in, is extremely expensive, not to mention physically demands a lot from your body, and only has something like a 2% chance of actually resulting in a successful pregnancy. Personally I think it’s quite the scam.
Talk to your gyno! They can help you assess your options.
Honestly, it’s less about your fertility and more about how long you want to be married or coupled up before having a child. Cause you can have a kid at 40-50.
But if you want to be in relationship for 5 years before having a kid then you have to put more effort into meeting someone now. You have to treat it like anything else important in your life and not be passive about it. But that is a slippery slope to unnecessary pressure to put on yourself. It’s like trying to fall in love with a gun to your head.
The better option to take, and the one you have more control over, is to accept that your next relationship may progress quicker than the previous ones. You can’t control your fertility even if you find the right person. You can control how fast a relationship progresses in order to maximize your fertility chances. So maybe the courtship is cut down and you move in together quicker. Maybe you screen the guys more properly so it streamlines the dating process.
The other option is do therapeutic work on yourself now, so you will be okay with not having kids later . That’s the harder route but it is often well worth it.
Take my advice with a grain of salt but I just gave you the realistic options without blowing smoke up your ass and not judging you. To recap: you might have natural fertility options till 40-50. If that’s truly what you want then try to meet someone now or be okay with having a kid early into a relationship. Third option is therapy. Which probably is the best option long term but least fun. lol
We met when we were young, dated in college, didn’t work out, and then reconnected about a year ago.
My mom met my dad when she was 35. First baby at 39 and second at 42. Healthy pregnancies and uncomplicated deliveries. You’ve got time, but it’s worth looking into freezing some eggs to give yourself options if it’s financially feasible. You can also go the solo mother sperm donor route later if you have a good support system and it feels right to you. Bottom line – you’ve got time and options!
I’m going to tell you some things as a woman who has been through infertility treatment. I realize that is not exactly what you’re dealing with, but all of the methods of preserving fertility are going to use the same therapies.
IVF has somewhere between a 30 and 40% success rate depending on who you talk to. This means most people who undergo IVF aren’t going to come out of the process with a baby. Nobody ever tells you this in quite that way. IVF is also around $25,000 out of pocket. Some people have insurance that will cover some are all of the cost, but most people don’t. And frankly if you don’t have a medical reason to do it probably it won’t be covered even if you do have an infertility rider on your insurance.
IVF can also have brutal and sometimes life threatening side effects on the body. It’s not just some shots and then a minor surgery for a lot of people. It took a full year from me stopping IVF to feel normal again because of all the drugs. As it turns out, transfer cycles (transfer the embryo into your body) are even worse.
IVF is the same process you will need to do in order to retrieve and freeze eggs. Freezing eggs doesn’t have a high success rate; in fact it’s lower than IVF.
Also, this process can take many years. We started at 37. We’re now 41. We were a normal if somewhat late age to have children then, now we’re what the fuck are you thinking old. In my personal case, I don’t regret waiting because I had a lot of issues in my life that would have made me a terrible parent that I had to reconcile first. But I wish desperately that had not been the case so I could have had more time.
My best possible advice to you as someone who’s been through all the shit, is at 34, if you want children, start looking into donor sperm and doing an IUI. Don’t freeze your eggs. Don’t do IVF. Don’t delay.
These are hard and painful choices, but you really have to decide if you want to risk not having something you badly want, for the sake of something you may or may not ever have (a relationship). At least with an IUI you are more in control of the situation than waiting on a partner.
I wish you the best of luck whatever you decide.
✅ Medical professional assistance and get out to ✅ dating world. Position yourself where you believe a good partner will be.
I started my life all over again, for the second time, in San Francisco betting I’d find the right guy. It took 6 months but I met my husband.
He’s everything! He is an engineer that works from home and has family values. We have the same goals so to us having his income and his flexibility positions us to have a family and stay physically close all day.
Picture the life you want and put yourself in that environment.
Furthermore, I used to live in a big city in the central valley thinking I may meet my guy. In the valley people tend to marry young so I figured at 21 it would be easy for me to notice the guys who were more professionally/trade oriented. And I had a lot of success with getting the attention of guys who were eligible bachelors. But their brain and their values were not aligned with mine, so even though I had gotten the guy it was impossible for me to be happy. So I left it all behind at 27 and moved to SF. It worked!
Anyway, if you find that guys are attracted to you and you get the best one from the crop. Stop and analyze. Maybe it’s the best one, but the crop you are looking into it just overall not your vibe.
Here’s a bit of a different take. What about considering fostering?
There are a lot of kids out there who need a loving place to land until they can safely return to their families.
Adoption is generally not the goal of fostering, but there are times when a child may not be able to return to their family of origin, and at that point adoption may be a possibility too.
And you can do all of this as a single woman. No need to wait for a man. If having children is your primary goal, fostering is a way to be a significant person in the lives of many children who really need someone to be there for them.
Just an alternative option to consider, although I recognize it may not be the right path for you!
Wishing you all the best!
I didn’t start trying to get pregnant until I was 35, and I got pregnant and had my son at 38. Yes there are risk factors after 40 that you should pay attention to, but it’s been my experience that A LOT can happen in a couple of years like changing how you feel about being a parent, new infertility treatments, or simply finding and falling into love with the right person. With hindsight in mind, I personally would wait to do anything until your 38th birthday, but have a talk with your doctor about current options and what his/her patients are considering.
Helloooo!!! I didn’t meet my partner until I was 32. We both want to have children but we want to get married, enjoy being married for at least a year, and buy a house first (and who knows how long buying a house will take!). I talked to my gyno and she suggested I look into freezing my eggs before I turn 35. Maybe you could look into that as well? I know quite a few folks who had healthy pregnancies well into their late 30s! I even know one mom who got pregnant at 41 haha. Its doable!
Are you open to the possibility of fostering or adopting a child in the future? That might take the pressure off your fertility.
Same here I(34m) want kids but it’s not looking so good for me at this point in my life who knows what the future will bring I’m don’t wanna be too old before I have kids like my parents did
Do you want children whether or not you find the right man to be a partner to you and father to them? If yes, pursuing artificial insemination may be the path you want.
Do you want to protect your best, healthiest eggs? Do you have significant disposable income/savings you’re willing to put toward that? If yes, pursuing egg freezing may be the path you want.
If you did get fertility testing for reserves, is there any sort of result that would change your behavior or choices? Would you start throwing yourself at one night stands when you’re ovulating, or start lowing your standards for what you expect from a partner or father? If yes, probably don’t get the testing.
You don’t need to panic. You do need to decide what path you want to pursue in the not terribly distant future.
Go get a checkup and ask. Ask them to take a look at that baby maker. Then read post from women having kids in their 40s.
If you take care of your health, you’ll probably be fine. You have years ahead of you.
Start dating with clear intention you want to start having kids in 4 years, get that incubator scanned, and ensure you’re exercising and eating right daily. Go!
Sometimes life doesn’t proceed the way we want it to. And that sucks. But that doesn’t mean it’s bad. I’ve had a similar life experience to you but I’m older. Here’s what I did.
I got married at 27. We were both in grad school and I wanted to wait until we both finished and had jobs to start a family. And I waited. At 32, that marriage fell apart. Divorce.
I met and dated my now husband soon after. We married when I was 38. We spent 4 years trying to conceive, which ended when I was 42 with a traumatic miscarriage. It was rough. I had a good 3 years of grief over not being able to carry a child to term.
We explored lots of other options. I knew for me IVF wasn’t what I wanted. Adoption was a thought then the pandemic happened. Then cancer happened. And now we’re close to 50.
I’d say, consider what it is you want from having children. What you want in a family. But most importantly what you want in a partner. Therapy helped me be better about choosing a partner after my first marriage failed. I have weekly therapy still now and it’s the best choice I ever made. Highly recommend.
I’m much happier to have a husband who loves me and is a true partner than if I pushed ahead so that I could have a baby but did not have that support. Consider what that looks like for you. Is being a mom your goal? How does that manifest itself? Could that be as a single person going through IVF with a donor? Being a foster parent? Or is it waiting to find the right partner to go that journey with you?
There are two things that are really interesting to me about human nature. The first is that a lot a lot a lot of people want to have a baby, but they want their “own” baby. They don’t have a drive to be a parent. They have a drive to parent their own genes. Which is what it is.
Then a whole lot of people think that having a good enough relationship to bring a kid into. It is kind of like manufacturing some or putting together a kit. It’s not. It’s a real crapshoot. It depends on us and how tangled up we are, and what our past is and how we are brought up and the same for the other person. Sometimes it works out well enough that people are relatively happy. But it’s always really complicated. It’s just that some people are more willing to make concessions than others. A lot of people are willing to be in a relationship. That’s even harmful because they’re afraid to be alone. So, being in a relationship isn’t the key to happiness.being a parent is not the key to happiness. It isn’t the destination. It’s a huge crapshoot, both of them. And sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn’t. But the Disney movie? If we are dating, looking for the Disney movie, we will miss, recognizing any possibility of having a nice time with somebody, regardless of whether we can build a future with them or not.
My cousin was your age when she finally broke it off with her boyfriend cuz he kept “saying” he wanted kids and to be married but then kept shifting the timelines. She met her husband 6 months later and they got married a year after that and immediately started trying to for kids. She had her first at 36 and then her second at 38