Pregnancy in your 30's

juliek · March 22, 2006

I had my first at 35 and my 2nd and 3rd (twins - LOL) at 40! All while I was extremely overweight (ok, super morbidily obese - YIKES). I also had extreme fertility issues (I had 8 miscarriages) and was on fertility shots, hormones, the whole 9 yards. I had one fertility specialist who told me I would never have a baby (got rid of him quick) and one who did everything in is power to make my dreams come true, but neither suggested that my weight was the cause of my fertility issues. My girls are all healthy and beautiful and so worth all the heartache I went throught to get them.

Just going to throw out a couple of facts for you to think about - 1) once you hit 35 your chances of having a miscarriage are roughly your age. ie. at 35 you have about a 35% chance of having a miscarriage. and 2) Your chances of having twins naturally, greatly increase after 35.

Nothing wrong with waiting until you are ready, and remember losing the weight will help while you are pregnant.

OBTW - My great grandmother was considered an "Old Maid" and didn't get married until the ripe old age of 28 (remember this is 1907) and went on to have 14 (count em 14) children, into her 40's.

kimalicious · March 22, 2006

Holy crap Julie 14 children that your grandmither had starting at 28, WOW! is all I can say to that. I appreciate all of the stories of women having healthy children in their 30's. I do realize it won't be easy with conception, but I have always had the thought that it wouldn't be easy anyways due to the PCOS. After I lose down substantially more, another 60 pounds, I am going to have my doc check for the small cysts again. My gyno just moved so I will have to find an entirely new doc soon, which I am not looking forward to. I've been on birth control for quite some time to regulate and keep the bad stuff at a minimum down there due to the small cysts and I'm hoping with more weight loss that this will all just go away! I didn't get the PCOS until I was over 200 pounds so hopefully getting under it will help it just go away. I did the figuring and I could be done with school in 2 and a half years if I go back full time, this includes the year of student teaching and all. So I will be 30. That is really only 2 years later than I intended and hopefully I can continue to heal my body through weightloss and become healthier with exercise also in the mean time and enjoy my marriage before kiddos come along. There are so many options these days for fertility and I'm sure in 2 and a half years there will be even more updates with that.

Thanks for all of the advice...It's just funny how your life never turns out to follow the timeline you put in place for it!

Dody · March 22, 2006

There was no birth control pill when I was first married, just a diaphragm. Well, that just didn't seem to work and neither did finding the time to say hey wait a minute or 10 I have something to do first I have my own little basketball team of 5 girls, but it got me to thinking. My dad comes from a family of 16 children and my mom from a family of 9. There was a time when huge families were the norm. I had a neighbor before I moved that had 10 children (remember this is Mormon country) and they were the best behaved kids around....at least until they grew up and saw the world, and even then they've all turned out alright. Just got me thinking, my Grandma was 46 when she had her last one and she still never skipped a beat. That was in the day of no washers, dryers, or anything we take for granted today. God Bless our ancestors.

sarahv · March 23, 2006

We tried for 11 months to get pregnant with my first - I was 34 when he was born. However, after that - my cycle was like a stopwatch and my daughter was planned almost to the day = ))

I turned 36 2 days after she was born = ))

I was my heaviest the day she was born - can't wait to get my band so I can keep up with the two of them = )))

Good luck!!