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[LibraryLover]

Thoughts? How old is the oldest woman *you know* who had a baby 'later' and did it naturally. I was having a conversation with someone today who said mid 40's - 50.  How common?

[Claire]

Sure. My mother. She was 44 when she had me, and 46 when she had my younger sister. This was long before the days of birth control pills, much less fertility treatments. :)

[Tracey in TX]

my grandma...

possibly even both grandmas! :)

[Whisperlily]

I have a friend whose youngest son is now 15. She unexpectedly got pregnant at 42. :)

[LizzyBee]

My grandma was in her 50's when she had her youngest child.

[Susan in TX]

I personally know one woman who had a baby at 45 (we used to attend the same church). My Grandmother was 41 when she had her last child (her oldest grandchild was 9 months older than her youngest child), and one of my aunts was 43.

 

Susan in TX

[Vida Winter]

Well I joke with my dh that I can fold his underwear and get pg. Since our last child we have taken care of birth control, permanently, if you kwim. I am almost certain that I would be pg again if not for that. The last pregnancy was a bit more tiring but I have kept pretty healthy and in decent shape so that helped.

[Quiver0f10]

I knew quite a few woman who have when I lived in NH.

[LND1218]

I know so many women who have and are having babies past 45.

[Starr]

My older relatives call them, "change of life babies".

[percytruffle]

Same here, mid 50's. She had ten kids. It scares me to think about it. The same thing could happen to me! My hormones just recently checked out as "perfect for someone trying to conceive"! Yikes! I thought I was headin' round the big bend of life at 45 and a half, guess not. I had better be careful. ;)

[Danestress]

I know two women who have had babies at 47 - both after having had a few other children, and neither one with real intentionality.

[Guest Shanna]

I have a friend who was deemed infertile. They never became pregnant at all for many years. Then *BOOM* the change-of-life baby occurred. She was near 50 when she had him, and he was in his mid-50's. As a sidenote, all those infertile years were spent in fostering. They fostered 14 children through the years.

 

What a wonderful story I am sure they have to tell.

[newsong]

My friend's sil married in her late 40s, had twins at 49. She's now 51 and expecting #3!

 

Our most recent blessing came a month before I turned 43. I'm 45 now. I figure if the average age of menopause is 51, I still could be welcoming another little one between now and then.

[mia78]

Oh yes, it was quite common in the 'olden days'. Women would start having babies in their late teens and have several up through maybe their forties and 50s. Think about the difference in lifestyles. Nowadays women stay on BCPs from their teen years, then at the age of 38 want to plan a family and have them back to back before the fertility clock stops ticking. But, since you can't control that clock, they need to go to the doc to speed up the process because the ticking is getting louder. No telling what the long term effects of usage of artificial hormones for decades is having on this generation. Also, look at the difference in the diets now compared with just 50 years ago. The vast majority of us consume way to many calorie dense nutrient poor foods and we wonder why we're seeing more problems that weren't so common in the past. I could go on and on, but will stop here....

[Ferdie]

My neighbor had her 8th child when she was 46.

[Laurie in VA]

My Nana was born in 1898 and she had her 1st - and only child (my Mom - in the late 1930s) at 40 yo. My Mom also has a college roommate who had her last child after she turned 40.

[Audrey]

had her 5th, 6th and 7th children at ages 44 and up. I believe she was 51 or 52 when #7 arrived. Her first 4 children were all born when she was in her late 20's/early 30's.

[Laurie4b]

A woman in our church had her last at 45, after a gap of several years of not conceiving. (She thought she was done.) I met a couple at a conference once who had their first (and I assume only...but don't know!) when she was 48. I and lots of women I know have had babies between 40 -44.

[Ravin]

Age of menopause varies just as much as age of puberty onset, and for some women fertility doesn't end until in the 50's. What's more, studies have found that having many children tends to delay menopause, while women who have none tend to hit menopause earlier.

[Barb_]

I was having a chat with someone today and we are both 45 and up. She says that she believes having a baby later in life is something that happened to women frequently in 'the old days'. I have never heard of it. Ok, maybe I've 'heard of it', but I do not actually know anyone who had a baby without fertility treatments past 45. I know many older celebs have recently had babies...but I don't think it's being done without 'help'.

 

Thoughts? How old is the oldest woman *you know* who had a baby 'later' and did it naturally.

 

The lady next door to my grandma had her first and only at 45 after thinking for 25 years that she was infertile. Reading this thread, I wonder if women naturally experience a surge of fertility before menopause. I find it interesting that there are quite a few stories of women having children at that time after years of infertility. My dh was conceived 10 years after his last sibling and his mom's tubes were tied! Interesting.

 

Barb

[Colleen]

How old is the oldest woman *you know* who had a baby 'later' and did it naturally.

 

I'd say mid- to late-40s. Large families (number of children, that is, not size;)) aren't unusual in my town and there are definitely women who, well into their 40s, continue having children.

[freethinkermom]

My mil was well into her 40's when she had dh. He is her only naturally born child (dh has a much older adopted half brother from her first marriage).

[Isa]

I wouldn't be here if my great-grandmother hadn't had my grandmother at the age of 49!

[momofkhm]

I wasn't going to post b/c it didn't end well. It was a change of life baby. I think Barb was between 43 and 45 when the little girl was born. Barb had a small pelvis so they did a c/s. After they opened her up, they found cancer and lots of it. I want to say there was a grapefruit sized tumor. The OB got as much out as he could then and there. She was given 5 years to live. I think she made it 6.

[6packofun]

..

[Harriet Vane]

She conceived naturally, though the pregnancy itself ended up being quite complicated. The baby was healthy and wonderful--he is now a great 7th grader, and she looks like a much younger woman. (She's in her 50s now.)

[Andie]

Dh's grandma had eleven children; her last was born when she was in her late 40's. My grandmother had my dad when she was 47 (he was the last of three closely spaced boys), and my aunt had her second child about fifteen years after her first at age 43...just a few weeks after my oldest was born. :)

[LizzyBee]

Well I joke with my dh that I can fold his underwear and get pg. Since our last child we have taken care of birth control, permanently, if you kwim. I am almost certain that I would be pg again if not for that. The last pregnancy was a bit more tiring but I have kept pretty healthy and in decent shape so that helped.

 

LOL, My dh and I joke that I can get pregnant if he winks at me from across the room. We took care of things permanently, too; if we had not, I'd bet money that I could still have a couple more kids.

[Leta]

An old prof of mine had her only child at age 42 after having been married for 20 years. She used to caution us about hormonal birth control and assisted reproductive technologies (always their health side effects), and finally someone asked if she used fertility drugs to have her son.

 

"Oh, no!", she said. "I would love to have more children, and if it happens, great, but I want to be around for my son, so I won't risk my health to get pregnant again." She was so vehement that I certainly believed her.

 

Also, my friend B's mom had her last child at, I think 44 (this was in the early 1980's, and this woman is so against hormonal b.c. that I can't imagine her using any of the new-at-the-time fertility drugs), and her last pregnancy at 46 or 47.

 

AND, I worked with a couple who had kids my age and a little younger, and the year the husband retired (I believe he was 56, and his wife was 8 years younger) they had a surprise baby girl. That was an unintended pregnancy, so I highly doubt the wife accidentially got poked with Clomid or anything.

 

Oh, and one more... I was reading about Almanzo Wilder's family, and his mom had her first child at age 23, and her last at 48. Her oldest daughter had kids older than her youngest little brother. And that was in the 1800s.

[Jennay]

Yep, I know a lady who just had a "surprise" baby girl at age 47. She has four other children, 2 of them in their twenties. The closest child in age to the baby is 10.

[Scarlett]

My Grandmother was 35 when my mom was born and had 5 more after that---the last one at age 45.

 

I know a woman who got pregnant after her dh had a V...she was 43....didn't know she was pregnant until she was full term.

 

I am 42...and even though I wanted a second child very much, I'm starting to feel too old! (now is the time I will get pregnant unexpectedly don't ya know;))

[LibraryLover]

I know women in their early 40's who had babies without assistance, but I don't know anyone over 45 who did.