Many older citizens want their daughters to have a baby when they are young, because they want the marriage to be well-settled, and to enjoy the pleasures of parenthood. Yes – they have a selfish reason as well, because they want to become grandparents too !
However, they are aware that adults are choosing to put off having babies these days, and because this is such a personal and sensitive issue, they find it hard to discuss it. They are proud of the fact that their daughter is highly qualified and is pursuing a successful career , because they have invested in her education, and she is now independent and capable of making her own decisions for herself. However, this can be a double-edged sword , and their biggest fear is that they will lose their opportunity to have a baby in their pursuit of professional success.
Now, we all know that fertility declines as women get older, but because this is such a sensitive issue, and young adults today have been told what to do with their lives , their mothers and mother-in-laws are understandably reluctant to broach this topic, and the best they can do is drop subtle hints, which are conveniently ignored because their kids don’t want anyone meddling in their life.
They are worried that these independent, highly qualified career women will end up not being able to have a kid, or will put off the decision for too long, and that this can be an expensive price to pay for the single-minded pursuit of professional success.
They are worried that they are not making a well-informed decision, and that this may be one they regret because it’s not possible to turn back the biological clock.
Matters become even more complex when the husband wants to have a baby; or when there is a lot of family money at stake, and the father-in-law is worried about the safe transfer of wealth to the next generation.
This is often the elephant in the room that no one brings up , and many women naively believe that if they aren’t able to get pregnant in the bedroom , they will always be able to do IVF, so they don’t need to worry, as long as they are in good health and their cycles are regular. However, this is not true, and IVF success rates decline dramatically as a woman gets older, and we can’t compensate for age-related poor egg quality.
When they find they can’t get pregnant because their eggs are too old, this causes major heartburn – not just for the family, but for her as well ! Most women will want to have a career and have a baby as well , and then they regret their decision to put off having a baby in their single-minded pursuit of a career . Many of them resent the fact that their family doctor and gynecologist did not warn them about this irreversible decline in egg quality, but the damage has already been done, because it’s not possible to assess ovarian reserve without doing specialized tests such as a blood AMH level and an antral follicle count – and these are not tests most doctors advise their patients to do until they want to plan their family.
The good news is that it is no longer necessary to depend only on your calendar age or your doctor to test your ovarian reserve. You can check your own ovarian reserve for yourself, by measuring your blood AMH levels. This is a simple blood test, and this is a topic you might want to bring up with your daughter or daughter-in-law if she wants to postpone child-bearing. Many young women want quantitative tangible data to make decisions that are well-informed, and this is helpful information that you can share with her. Based on serial AMH levels, she can plan out both her professional life as well as her personal life , so that she has peace of mind that she is making the right decision for herself . This allows her the autonomy to decide for herself, by monitoring her personal biological clock.
The truth is that even though these women may be professionally very successful , they are often very unsure as to when they should plan a baby, and this simple blood test provides invaluable information.
This way, they don’t have any regrets that the postponed childbearing needlessly ! When they find they can’t have a baby with their own eggs at the age of 40 because their eggs have become too old, this can be a bitter pill to swallow for these successful young women , who have pretty much gotten used to having everything they want in their life.
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