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Really can't tell you much, other than we decided to try when my wife was 44 and succeeded in the first month, with her giving birth at age 45 (via C-section) to a perfectly healthy child. Other than my wife taking folic acid supplements daily, we did nothing special (no fertility procedures, temperature taking or anything else).
Obviously, that's not everyone else's experience, but just wanted to point out that it *can* happen, and each individual situation is...well, an individual situation. I'm younger than my wife, which probably helped a little, and her family history included "older" pregnancies from a time before any fertility treatments, although I don't know if there is much of a genetic link or not. emm74's advice is excellent.
My wife also had some additional screenings, etc. while pregnant, but I think that's standard now for "advanced maternal age", which apparently is anything 35 and over.
Why would it matter that you are younger than your wife?
Why would it matter that you are younger than your wife?
Although the impact is FAR less than maternal age, paternal age does play a role in fertility. http://www.fertstert.org/article/S00...679-4/fulltext Again, it's a far smaller role (hence my comment "it probably helped a little"). I'm 8 years younger than my wife, which is somewhat unusual (don't have the stats handy but general observations are that men tend to be a couple years older than their spouses and I suspect the distribution of age differentials is a bit of a bell curve around that). Given that my wife was over age 44 at conception, every little bit likely helped.
That said, again, there are so many individual issues that impact fertility beyond age 35 that all anyone give a specific person are anecdotes and rough guidelines.
Why would it matter that you are younger than your wife?
Well, volume of semen and sperm motility actually does continually decline as men age, and it is the case that difficulty conceiving can be traced to sperm issues, as well as/rather than female fertility. My brother has medication for a chronic condition that sometimes causes decreased sperm motility, and when he and his wife were trying to conceive, he opted to go off meds for a stretch to help facilitate things.
So in that sense, relative youth is on the side of easier conception for men, as well as women. But, as with anything, it's still pretty individual, and trying and seeing how it goes, versus assuming fertility issues right out the gate is a wise approach.
If so, would you mind sharing your experiences with that? DH and I just started going down that road. (We know our odds aren't great.)
I have three friends who waited and had their first child after age forty. After eight months of trying, one went to a specialist and had a series of tests run, she was 42. One of the top three tests came back not very promising, naturally she was somewhat discouraged. However, three months later she was pregnant. She had a fine healthy baby boy and is now pregnant with number two. If it does happen, be prepared that they throw you into the high risk category, so don't freak, it's actually a good thing. Like you, my friends live in Dallas and their physicians took excellent care of them. Best of luck to you.
I know 5 people who had babies in their forties at age 40 (3), 41 and 42. All had healthy babies. I think there is a greater risk and you'll be one of the older mom's at school functions, but it's becoming more common to have a child later rather than earlier. I had my two at 32 & 34. I thought about having a third, but it was too late as I started peri-menopause at 38! At 42, I'm completely through it.
I have three friends who waited and had their first child after age forty. After eight months of trying, one went to a specialist and had a series of tests run, she was 42. One of the top three tests came back not very promising, naturally she was somewhat discouraged. However, three months later she was pregnant. She had a fine healthy baby boy and is now pregnant with number two. If it does happen, be prepared that they throw you into the high risk category, so don't freak, it's actually a good thing. Like you, my friends live in Dallas and their physicians took excellent care of them. Best of luck to you.
That's awesome! Do you know which specialist she saw? There aren't actually all that many around here. Mine got great reviews and a writeup in D Magazine so hopefully she's good.
Quote:
Originally Posted by emm74
BigDGeek, did you have your doctor's appointment yet? Fingers crossed you get good news when you do!
There's a series of appointments for both DH and I to get a baseline on where we are right now. The three areas they're checking are my reproductive system, my hormones, and his semen. We're about halfway through that process now and when they have all the results, we'll know where we are.
In the meantime we're still working on it at home. My ovulation predictor kit still shows smiley faces mid-cycle so....either I'm menopausal or I'm ovulating.
That's awesome! Do you know which specialist she saw? There aren't actually all that many around here. Mine got great reviews and a writeup in D Magazine so hopefully she's good.
Baby girl of this 40-year old mom is here! Arrived healthy, perfect at 5 p.m. yesterday. Cuddling her now.
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