Did I really need this to add to my stress level? What was I suppose to do, just have a kid with anyone and be a single mom at twenty-nine, go to a sperm bank, or settle down with Mr. Wrong just to get pregnant. I didn’t have many options, yet society was making me feel like it was entirely fault, and sadly, I wasn’t alone. Women everywhere feel this pressure. Biological clocks are constantly sounding off around the country. Pop culture even hopped on board and entertainment magazines routinely showcase photos of bloated celebrities and coin the pix as “Hollywood’s Baby Bump Watch.” Stars in their late thirties and early forties get plagued with the question that every other woman in America is asked “Are you ever going to have children? You don’t have forever you know.”
“They told us we could have it all, and we can’t!” That was the message, but it didn’t seem real to me. After all, I knew plenty of women who had their first child in their late thirties even in their early forties naturally including my own mother. Why were people panicking?
We are an information society, and young women, and women of a certain age, turn to Google to uncover everything they need to know about fertility. There are a number of preconception Web sites with fertility calculators to track a woman’s cycle. There are fertility monitors, ovulation wristwatches, and thermometers to check your temperature which rises when a woman is ovulating. There are tests that can predict your pregnant five days before a missed period. Fertility vitamins, fertility tea, acupuncture treatments to aid in fertility y muchos mas!
OBGYN’s generally recommend that patients seek a fertility doctor after twelve months of trying to conceive if you are thirty-four and under, and after six months if you are thirty-five and up.
According to the American Pregnancy Association, women over thirty-five take longer to conceive. The average time it takes a couple over thirty-five to conceive is one to two years. Women ovulate less frequently, and there is a decline in egg quality after age thirty-four.
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