I was twenty, when daughter number one was born, and 22, when the second joined us. 20 makes it so easy to remember the age of both of us. LOL

Well, sometimes in life you get what you get. Thankfully kids don't get to choose their parents... I am beyond delighted to have two great kids, even if I'm old enough to be their grandparent ...39 and 41. Yes, there is a box on the OB form "advanced maternal age" that's how they put it.

Married right out of high school. First baby at age 18, her sister arrived 361 days later. I have no regrets in this 57 year old marriage. I plan to go the distance with my high school sweetheart.

I didn't even want kids until I was 26. My husband said he knew that sooner or later hormones would take over. ;)

27, 29, 31, 32

I am sorry, chisue and Lindsey_Ca.

22, 24, 26 and 35. My first two, both girls were born two years apart to the day....Jan. 17th. Second two were both boys.

A week after I turned 30, I had my son. I was 34 when I had daughter one and 36 years old for daughter number two.

Elmer- I was wondering if someone was going to make a comment about marrying and having children young and a possible correlation with failed marriages.

It is a topic of interest to me. My maternal grandparents married young and had kids young, mom was 17, 18, 22, 25, 26 and 34 when she gave birth. They divorced because he was an abusive alcoholic.

My paternal grandparents married young but waited to have kids until they were mid-20s, and they would have celebrated their 60th anniversary if she hadn't passed away.

My parents married at 19, had my brother at 21 and me at 24 and they are still going strong.

I married at 19, celebrated our 5 year anniversary with a 4 month old and we are doing great.

It makes me wonder if the correlation is not necessarily with how old you are when you have kids but how long you have been with your partner?

As for me, I wanted to be done having kids by the time I was 30 because the women in my family on both sides have gynecological issues that seem to crop up early to mid 30s and most have had to have hysterectomies.

I knew if I waited to conceive, I might not be able to.

What's funny is my kids birthdays and my sisters 2 boys, I'm including my stepson here which I didn't above since I didn't give birth to him.

Lance 8/12

Matt 9/12

Cole10/12

Michael11/12

Mark12/12

My mom always chuckled about this.

All were normal vaginal births except Lance. So none were planned this way.

I was 30 when I had our daughter and 33 when our son was born. And although he didn't choose to be raised by someone old enough to be his grandmother, :), our grandson arrived when we were 54 and has been with us ever since. He is now 15. It's kind of fun to have a "do over"!

I had my DD just a few days shy of 25 and I was 27 when I had my DS. They are 25 months apart.

DD was 36 when she had a daughter and 38 when she had her son. They are 26 months apart and were born on the same day of the month.

31 for my one and only. We'd been married 7 years. I sometimes wonder if we'd started earlier, would we have had more. No way of knowing.

21 and 25 We married when I was 19. We met when I was 16 and my husband 22. We didn't date until I was 18 and married pretty quickly. The funny thing is I don't remember meeting my husband. We knew a lot of the same people and many people told me for over a year that this guy liked me blah, blah, blah. .. when I saw who they were talking about I still didn't remember meeting him. After I turned 18 mutual friends said he still keeps talking about you, so I agreed to a date.

26

20

I adopted two daughters from Korea. I picked the first one up from JFK airport when I was 35 and the second from Logan airport 22 months later. They are 17 months apart.

Advanced Maternal age participant here. Had my 1st and only at 41. Got married at 39. Had to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince.

29, 31, 35

My first child, daughter Sandy, was born on my 22nd birthday, July 22, 1963. How neat that was for me...made me, my twin sis, Sandy + a couple of nieces and great-nieces born on the same date. My son, Gary, was born on June 5, 1968, the evening/early morning when Senator Robert Kennedy was shot. Both kids have liked having "auspicious" birthdates. :)

Correction on above...fingers got tangled up. I do know that Sandy was born on July 27, 1963, not the 22nd. Ugh!

Son at 21' oldest daughter at 23 and last one at 28. Loved having kids!! Wouldn't know what to do without them..

Evatx you can correct errors right on the original post if you want. Just press the edit button above your post on the right.

Week shy of 27 then son was born in '64, 29 with DD#1 and 33 with DD#2. My Mother had 6 children, first at 22 and last when she was 42, 20 years apart.

1st son at 25, daughter at 27 and second son at 28.

DD at 29....DS at 30...DS at 35...and today I am 81....where oh where did those years go?.......

I was 30, 32, and 35. The first was a few days early, the second two weeks early, and the third one month early. We tried again when I was 41, but I had a miscarriage.

Hugs to Lindsay and Chisue . . . I know what the pain of infertility feels like. I went through a lot of testing and shed a lot of tears before my first successful pregnancy.

Interesting thread!

I'm 33 and haven't been able to conceive yet, so I'm worried. Hopefully soon. I would have loved to have had children in my late 20's but I didn't meet my husband until I was 30. I do think there are benefits to waiting a little longer to have kids.

I work in a school and most parents had their kids in their mid to upper 30's. A starter home runs $600k where I live and most people want to be financially established before having kids, both in assets and careers.

I've noticed that on the coasts and more urban areas, many people wait until they are older. In the South and Midwest, it tends to trend towards younger maternal age. I imagine cost of living is a factor, as well as cultural influences. I have a friend who is my age who lives in Tulsa, and it's completely different than California. She feels ostracized for not having kids yet in her 30's. I went to high school in Utah and many people get married very early there. I knew a few who married at 18, and by the time I graduated college, most had married and already had 2 or 3 kids.

I was married 15 yrs when my daughter was born. Like Elmer said, wanted to be sure we were financially able to support having a baby. We were 19 when we got married and had $11. And, I wanted to be sure I could live with Jody before adding anyone else. For me, it was the best decision I ever made. I always knew I would probably only have one, too.

My parents were in their 40's when I was born and had already raised 3 children. I never felt deprived because they were already grandparents. I felt fortunate that I grew up in a stable home because they had already been married 24 yes. My niece and nephew were like brother and sister to me. My mother was the healthiest person I have ever known.

I hope you'll soon have the child you want, Chi. I trust you and your DH have had medical workups by *specialists*. (I'm not directing this to you.)

It's because of my own child-bearing difficulties that I urge young women (and men) to simply note all the ramifications of postponing parenthood. A healthy pregnancy and healthy baby are not a given at any age, but they become increasingly less probable as we age. (Our DIL had an easy pregnancy, delivery of a second perfect child, and fine recovery at age 37 -- but medically, hers an 'at risk' pregnancy, solely due to known factors for women over 35.)

There are medical and social reasons women are made to be fertile early -- and to be high-energy through the subsequent years of child-rearing. The current model of security seems overblown -- and seriously mistaken -- when it puts having children years behind the acquisition of education, jobs, cars, houses, and pets. It falsely presumes we can *acquire* our children as well -- according to our plans, ignoring nature.

I was 26 with first and 28 with second. I was divorced after almost 9 years of marriage - children played no part in divorce. DD had her first at 28 and 2nd just after turning 30. They will celebrate their 20th anniversary in a few weeks. DS married later and they adopted when they were both 34 and then had a baby 13 months later. They are now divorced.

I was just barely 16 :(

Not everyone postpones by choice, but it is good to be aware of the potential ramifications and challenges if one does choose to wait. Think I'm the oldest Mom on the thread so far (!) and it wasn't by choosing to wait (hope that made sense).

3 weeks shy of 22

HB I think you and I are tied about the oldest Mother. Amber was born in Oct. and I was 41. I was 42 the following February. I had no problems with any pregnancy. Never even had morning sickness. My Mother in Law was born when her Mother was 56 years old. She had 3 older brothers I believe.

Sue

Married a sailor at seventeen, had our beautiful daughter just before 18th birthday... had our handsome son just before nineteen. Still married to a sailor,, though he is retired now, and our children are older than we are. My daughter is 50 and our son 49. Don't know how it happened, but dang they grew up quickly. :))

I was 30 when I adopted my first puppy.

"There are medical and social reasons women are made to be fertile early -- and to be high-energy through the subsequent years of child-rearing. The current model of security seems overblown -- and seriously mistaken -- when it puts having children years behind the acquisition of education, jobs, cars, houses, and pets. It falsely presumes we can *acquire* our children as well -- according to our plans, ignoring nature."

chisue, I suspect the reason for young human fertility (if indeed that's true compared to other mammals) is an evolutionary one. Up until just the past few generations, child mortality was high and human lifetimes were relatively short, compared to what they are now. For the species to survive (for enough births that survive long enough themselves to reproduce before dying) , early and repeated childbirth were required. Today, not so much.

Many people expect much more from their life experiences than just having and raising kids. Often in the course of doing such things, they decide they don't want any. That was nearly our story. Birds and many other animals prepare a "home" for their young in advance of having young.

Another factor for what you've described as the security model is that many women want to pursue careers in addition to shouldering what historically was a disproportionate female-parent role for children. In such cases, true job security allowing for enough maternity leave without derailing a career often requires having earned enough advancement and job tenure.

Marilyn_Sue, the company is great! I wondered if older Moms have less morning sickness -- I didn't have any either (although gained weight like...well, like eating for three or four, LOL!).

Was blessed with adopting my son (only child) when I was 34 and DH was 36. We had been married for 12 years and struggled with infertility and two miscarriages during that time. DS will turn 25 next month and is a wonderful,smart and funny young man. Seems like just yesterday he was placed in our arms. Chi- sending good thoughts your way.

Chisue, I haven't had any specialist workups done. My doctor is not worried about my age. Many of her patients are having children into their 40's. As for medical complications, aside from genetic abnormalities, which are a roll of the dice anyway, we have a lot more screening and treatment options than even a few decades ago. As I said, I wish I could have had children earlier, but it wasn't in the cards for me, and I think it would have been irresponsible to bring children into the world without a stable marriage and an established career, even at the cost of extra energy or slightly better statistics.

I agree with Snidely about fertility and evolution. I think as our life expectancies continue to increase (if we can get our lifestyles under control) we'll see the average age of parents continue to increase. I think there's certainly a limit to what's healthy, as it's not really fair to a kid to have a guaranteed parent loss at an early age, but there are also many benefits to being more established. And not just financially.

DD, my only, was born 5 days after I turned 24 and I was born 22 days before my mother turned 24 with my DB coming alone 23 months later. DD, at 37, is expecting her first (and probably only) in a few months. She had testing for genetic abnormalities at 11 weeks because of her age, all fine, and the bonus is that she learned that it will be a boy. At 7 months she is progressing well and is starting to nest. But she skied on Christmas Day (early morning when they had the slopes to themselves) with her OB's blessing. Of course, she is an excellent skier and skis in perfect control. She just had to get one run in this season and the video my SIL took and the narration is something her son will enjoy when he is old enough to learn about his first run (in utero). The only reason she isn't skiing more is that she is worried about the other idiots on the slopes. So far her pregnancy and energy level has been very similar to mine with her even though she is almost 14 years older than I was when I was pregnant.

My Mom and I had babies 3 years apart. She was 45 and I was 19. So far, in our lineage, there has never been a divorce. Not because we are devoted to marriage but that each couple seem to be close to the perfect match for each other. We were lucky. My Mom was one of 11, dad one of 12 , together they had seven children. I was a grandmother at age 45 lol. Now I'm a great grandmother and life is just so great with Dylan in my world.

Zip. I got my tubes tied when I was 22.

My husband's mother had grown children....maybe even a grandchild or two, when she married his father, who had grandchildren...probably even great grandchildren, and after they got married, they had six children in six years. She was 38 when he was born....four more after him, and his dad was 68, and 72 when his last was born. The baby had spina bifida and died shortly after birth, and his mother died from breast cancer a couple of years later.

I was almost 34....had no trouble getting pregnant and no morning sickness or complications during pregnancy and only gained 25 lb. Had a c section and was in the hospital for five days, and lost all but 7 when I got out. My mother, who was 42, also said she never had any nausea or other problems.

My mother was 42 but probably looked older. She was thin and had premature gray hair. After I was born, in a Catholic hospital, by the way, she didn't see me for several hours. One of the sisters came into her room, which was a room with 4 beds, and said, "Have any of you had a baby and not seen it?" My mother said, "I haven't seen mine." The sister said, "Hmph!! No old woman like you has had a baby!" My mother said, "Well, I guess I ought to know if I had a baby or not!" I am quite sure my father was there, and he was a very over bearing type of person, and I can just imagine smoke coming out of his ears, because shortly, the mother superior came running into the room....my mother said her rosary or whatever she had hanging on her outfit (sorry, not Catholic...I don't know) "just a'jangling". She said, "Yes that is Mrs. Stout's baby.....give it to her right now!!"

My point is that there are known *odds*, and you cannot bend them to your will. You ignore them at your peril -- yours and your child's. Yes, is is possible for women to produce 'a baby' at 40, 50, or later, but is that optimum? I don't think so. I'd just like there to be more recognition given to the biological realities -- and a little less to the *perfect* home. (Good is 'good enough', and it isn't as though life stops at a child's birth; still time to keep 'perfecting'!)

I was strung along by an MD, wasting years, until a specialist determined that my viable ovary had no viable tube. Sometimes a man needs help to boost his semen quantity or quality. Today, my DH and I could have tried in vitro -- another option. Waiting to become parents makes you Older Parents over the whole course of your child's life.

24. Daughter

26. Miscarraige

28. Son

30. Son

32. Son

after last one got my tubes tied. Doctor said DH had to sign for it! Like H3LL, I signed his name, my body, my decision!

161/2 years! First son 2 months premature. Second son at 19. At 30 had miscarriage AFTER my tubes were tied. Loved having my children young. It is wonderful to have the energy to play with my 1 year old Great granddaughter.

My son was born in August, and I turned 19 two months later.

I was 26 with DS and 34 with DD. I had to go on birth control to get pregnant the first time and then I told DS he would probably never have a sister or brother. My DH and I went to the Wisconsin Dells the first time and I got pregnant, and 8 years later we decided to take DS there and I got pregnant again. I just told my best friends daughter to go there, because she can't get pregnant and they want a baby so bad. Son will be 39 on March 6th and daughter will be 33 on March 23.