Is 34 too old to start?

I just turned 29 and hubby will be 29 in Nov.

We are in first year of residency, then plans for 1 year of fellowship.

We'd like to have it the end of fellowship.

What are your thoughts about this age starting/having kids?

The earliest we would start no matter what would be the last year of res.

All my girlfriends are starting now, 28/29 and will be done by 32/33 max. They also only plan to have 2.

[DCJenn]

We were 33/34 when we started (unsuccessfully) to do kid-making the 'natural' way.

But before we started we had a "come to Jesus" session (not really since neither one of us is remotely religious. but we all know what I mean here)about what the expectations were, how far we were willing to go (as a couple) to conceive. We knew 1) it wasn't all that important for us to have a child of our own 2) Clomid/ the turkey baster/ IVF were NOT for us 3) adoption had always superceded the desire to be pregnant and give birth.

So, at age 36 (him) and 37 (me) we believe that we are lucky enough to be able to afford to adopt a child from Russia. There are MAJOR risks with international adoption, much like there are risks with any form of adding to one's family.

and all that said, my 38 year old best friend got pregnant 8 days after her wedding.

My advice is to discuss all of the possibilities NOW, because in the emotions of the moment, you need to know where the other stands on these ever so important issues. We had already decided that there was no way in hell I was going to do any treatments to get pregnant. It was a hell of a lot easier going through some of the testing I had knowing we were already 3/4 of the way through the adoption process- it didn't matter what the results were.

So, we are now waiting for the first referral, it will probably be a boy, we excited, scared, etc. but really. really happy, too.

In sum, think it through, be prepared to make some hard decisions, but trust that everything ends up as it was meant to be. You won't be "too old", that much is true.

The facts are what they are, your fertility decreases every year.

I don't regret for a moment the decision we have made. But we knew going in that we were older, that we didn't really need to have one of our own, and that adoption can work (my husband is adopted).

Jenn

[houseelf]

You have posed the $64,000 question, my friend. I know people who have tried for years to conceive while still in their twenties and friends who are crazy fertile in their late thirties. Sadly, no one can predict which group that she will fall in until she tries. One thing that might give you a small clue as to your potential fertility: ask your mom and grandmom. My maternal granmother conceived multiple times in her thirties (although miscarried often) while my mom was done having kids by 26.

This is a serious enough question that I would discuss it with an ObGyn to see if you have anything that might prompt you to start earlier. IMHO, if achieving pregnancy is an important life goal, I would seriously contemplate trying sometime during training if you are running up against some time frames. (Lord knows that we had to try during training. We'll collect social security before DH finishes.)

I hope this helps. There is a lot of alarmist press out there on this topic. I'm not sure that it is entirely accurate, but certainly there is truth to the fact that it does get harder the older you get.

Have fun dreaming about it in the mean time. Once the munchkins come, you never regret it.

Kelly

[DCJenn]

I was thinking some more about this question-

and you know, it was a great souce of some excellent conversation with my husband- stuff we'd never talked about before we weremarried (back when we assumed that it would just 'happen')

I do think you should take Kelly's suggestion to heart- there are some very easy hormonal tests that can be done, to make sure that everything is humming along smoothly. There are some more invasive testing procedures but they are usually done as a final test that I wouldn't recommend.

You may need to do some soul-searching yourself. My friend (the one who got pregnant on her honeymoon, had already decided her path to parenthood should she had needed assistance. My advice is not just for those contemplating conceiving in their 30's either. I would recommend that everyone think about it because 1) accidents DO happen and people need to think through what kind of an impact THAT would have and 2) there are no guarantees!

There are some people here who have gone through the various routes to parenthood and I hope they'll chime in, too.

Russian adoptoin is no picnic, but at least I don't get stretch marks! (only a stretched wallet!)

Jenn

[Flynn]

My short answer is that it completely depends on the couple and primarily the full time parent which is the non-doc.

The long answer is really look at your reasons why you would wait. If it is primarily financial...where there is a will there is a way. If it is more complicated than that, look closely at your reasons. Some people just aren't ready at 28 or 29 to start a family (I wasn't). I just wasn't ready.

If you are waiting to wait...DON'T. There is no perfect time to have children and you figure it out as you go.

Finally, the longer you wait, the less likely you are to conceive. It's scary but true. I think having tests is a great idea -- but not all tests can tell you everything. How sad would you be if you didn't conceive during the year you have "dubbed to start a family" after you waited, but it took you two more years?? It could very easily happen.

This is totally a personal choice for you and your husband and there is no "right" answer.

[Meenah]

Everyone here has shared some great ideas, I really don't have anything else to offer. I had my girls at 25 & 27 and have never regretted it. I would talk to my OBGYN. Some women start "perimenopause" in their late 20s. You could at least have hormone levels checked to make sure you aren't in that category. Best of luck to you.
Luanne

[migirl]

I don't have an answer for you, but I think you've gotten some pretty good advice here. Most people know that I've struggled with this question, as we are in a similar position to you. We are both 29 now and will be 33-34 by the time we finish fellowship (which it looks like we're probably going to do), and while I feel like post-training would be the ideal time to start our family I'm afraid of the prospect of diminishing fertility. We did a lot of going back and forth on the issue, but we finally decided that becoming parents mattered more to us than any of the financial issues, and it was going to be better (biologically speaking) to start sooner than later. We might not have as much money as we'd like, my husband might not be around as much as we would like, and I might not get as much support as I'd like, but if it means the difference between having little ones or not then we'll figure out a way to make it work. (Hopefully it's not TMI, but we've started 'trying' already. )

As Flynn says,

where there is a will there is a way

Good luck to you, it's a hard decision to make (I know, I've been there! ).

[Auspicious]

Yeah, add me to the list. You're definitely not alone. I turned 29 earlier this month and we talk about this several times a week. Once you consider all the factors of this decision, and then you rearrange the thousand different permutations thereof, it's hours and hours of fun, isn't it?

To answer your original question, we considered waiting until I was 34, because in FH's shortest possible training scenario he finishes when I'm about to turn 34, but we decided we weren't comfortable waiting until that age. It is important to us to wait until we move out of the city, though (I'll be 31), so we're not in the "just jump right in" camp, either. It's definitley a lot of careful weighing of the risks and benefits, all of which could easily just be wiped off the table if the "but we WANT to get started now" factor reaches critical mass. Good luck to us all!

Thanks for all the responses.

First, all systems are functioning as normal, with a regular monthly visitor. No other problems that I am aware of.

Maybe in 2 or 3rd year then we will look into those hormonal tests and do them for me and then we'll go by what they say.

The reason for waiting is purely financial. I mean, we would have waited 2 years no matter what (we have only been married 6 months) but if we weren't in residency i'm sure i'd be having one at 30 or 31. $$ wise, we'd like me to stay home with the kids for several years, and we'd like 3 immediately after eachother. I've planned to start a business during that time as well. So we really don't have the $$ to both have me stay home, and have 3 kids that we'd like to during that time period.

It's weird, I know of the stories how people think it will be easy and it takes years, and those who think it will take a while, don't, i'm being naively optimistic, I have a feeling it won't take that long. Of course, I have no reason to think that. I'm sure everyone thought that also.

$$ wise we have an insane amount of debt, too much that I could sleep comfortably at night knowing i'm not making money. It makes me feel good, the less debt we have. We are going to start paying back the loans year 2, so I guess depending on how that goes, or if we win the lottery, we'll decide then.

I also think, i'm 29, thinking about babies but i'm fine with waiting for a while. At 31, I may not be so fine with waiting, we'll have to see how it goes I guess. But, unfortunately, $$ is the deciding factor right now, I know it doesn't have to be, but we are making it the factor. We owe a lot of money for his school debt, around 250K.

Hubby gets depressed on this sometimes, that he's studied so long, and so hard, and we have to watch what we buy at the grocery store and not go over budget. Sometimes you just feel like it's unfair. Everyone I know has a house, combined we have 5 Univ. degress and we can't afford to buy the TIDE brand, we just buy no name.

Ok, now i'm making myself depressed.

It is a long and hard road to get to the end of training, isn't it? We're always thinking about what we can and can't afford, and have adjusted to the fact that we can't afford things like other people our age. Oh well! We'll all get there eventually...

For us it was a financial thing to wait, as well as my husband wanting to be around more for the kid. He'll be done in June 2005 when the baby is about 5 or 6 months old. To him this was an ideal situation. I'm not so sure being an attending is all that much different time-wise from being in training, but to him it is. I'm 30 and 18 weeks pregnant now, by the way. We also spent months and months trying to figure out the timing of everything, and it worked out just the way we wanted it to - after changing our minds a bunch of times about when we were going to start trying.

Good luck, have lots of fun in the time before you start!

Deleting double post...