My lady and I have been dating for two years. I've known her since elementary school but didn't start really talking up until two years ago. Long story long we both know we will be married and have kids together. I'm 29 and shes turning 30 January. Figure by the time we get married and start trying to have kids shell be 31-32. She keeps scaring the shit out of me that the longer we wait the more high risk she will be. Obviously this lead me to reading statistics about older age pregnancies and being more prone to having kids with disabilities, etc. So now I am scared shitless about waiting any longer but I am doing the responsible thing and continuing to wait until we get a place together (in the process) and getting married. We both work at the same place and have decent paying very secure jobs.

I'm assuming I'm not the only one here that will be having a kid post 30 years old. Have any of you experienced complications because of this?

Used to be many years ago after 35 was high risk. Now days it seems after 40 is high risk. A lady at work had her last kid when she was 38 twelve years later he is a normal 12yo boy.

32 is nothing...don't worry.

You should have all your children prior to 30, for a variety of reasons (both  men and women)

But in your case, you better get after ASAP

I am 39 and have a four year old and twins on the way.  All healthy so far.  We did do a little extra testing to make sure all was well.

She is 35.

doctors may start worrying if you are carrying after age 35, definately after age 38-40.

OMG!

Wifey and I were both 33 when pony_jr was born. He just turned 21, a Junior at a major university with a 3.63 overall GPA.

I told him he could keep sending me his tuition bills if he kept up the grades. Little bastard is costing me a fortune...

We had ours when me and the wife were 39. No troubles. Kid is 7 now.

The "risk" she is talking about normally starts after 40, not 30. Strange things do happen but she is full of shit.

The real issue is the fact that her eggs are getting older. The older she gets the harder it may become to get pregnant. Eggs get old and don't play well with sperm when they are crusty.

How do I know this? My wife and I started the process when she was 36. Got pregnant once and miscarried. A shit ton of money later on fertility treatments she gave birth to twins. At the age of 43!

If you get it done before 35 you are probably gtg. After that it may be more difficult.

It's a real risk, but people don't care and want to get the most out of life...

Whatever, I have no dog in this fight.

This has probably progressed over the last 20 years or so...

I heard my dad's wife talking about someone wanting to have kids when she said something like, "She can't do that, she's almost 30" (dad's wife is 88, grew up in a different time)

Spousal unit had our 5th beastie right before she turned 38.  OB kept a little closer eye on her with that one.  Issues around 35 are possible, but not likely provided she is otherwise healthy.  Genetic issues would cause risk at any age.

She'll be fine.  Just make sure y'all practice a lot until then.

We had our last one when my wife was 42. Zero issues and she'd have another if I'd give her my seed.

34 is generally the age cited in studies for a very slightly increased risk of complications. Show her the statistics for divorce for couples that have a child in the first year of marriage compared to those that wait any time she mentions it.

32 is 'old age'?  I have socks older than that.

I think risks start to show up after 40.

I agree with all so far. The risk doesn't start to go up till age 35 and even then it's slight. As the woman approaches 40 there's somewhat of a steep curve in the risk. We just had our third a year back, wife had just turned 37. We did do a couple extra test during the pregnancy but nothing crazy. I wouldn't even give it any worry unless she's approaching 40 tbh.

We are due in mid October and the wife is 40.  Everything is fine.

32?? That is not old at all. Wife had my daughter at 41.

My wife is 31. Carrying healthy twin baby boys due in December.  All genetic tests come back negative, meaning no Downs, etc.


I'm more concerned about how old I will be when my kids get old, less about how old my wife is when she's carrying.

Give her the baby batter.

Eject.  

thank me later.

36 and 38 for our 2 incredibly healthy and intelligent boys. OB kept an eye on the second one with a few extra tests but, not an eye was batted at the office.

Read the literature. The magic age is 40 where shit starts to go fucky
 

Sadly, the risk hasn't decreased. People just abort the defective ones.  

Wife and I were married at 19yo, did not have kids right away, just wanted to be together and be able to travel together for a while. When we decided to have a child at 32yo, she got pregnant(by me yes.....before the knuckle heads make a comment), we now have a very smart 6yo first grader at 38years old!



No regrets on our part!

The risk is definitely increased by thirty. Every year that goes by the risks increase. You will have to decide at what age you consider the risks to be more than you want to chance.

We had our first when I was 32 and the wife was 29; she just had our fourth child at 40.



No issues, the last three were home births.

My wife was 32 and 34. Both our children are as healthy as can be. Praise the gods.

Yeah 40 is downs risk.   That is why it's a big deal.

My old lady had ours at 33 and 35 both healthy and rambunctious.

Heed this man's advice, OP. You don't want to have a kid that can only keep up a 3.63.

That's just silly.

Not quite. A quick internet search will show that the risk of downs increases at 25, 30 and so on. The site I just looked at put 25-30 year olds at like a 1in 1250 and 30-35 at around 1 in 950. That is still a small chance but a definite increase. As pointed out it snowballs from there.

MIL had her 9th at 44. No issue. He is 16 and one of the most squared away kids I know.

Females clock out about 25. Past that and it's considered "advanced maternal age".



BE SURE YOU MAKE ENOUGH SO SHE CAN STAY HOME FOR ABOUT 3 YEARS.



 

While birth defects are a reason for concern, fertility is actually a bigger one.  Female peak fertility is between ages 18 to 26.  It drops off slowly until age 30, and then more dramatically after age 35.  It wouldn't hurt to hurry up if you know you want children together, and if you've known her for that long.

Wife is 37 and pregnant. So far so good.

A buddy of mine had a pushy wife who really wanted kids. According to him, she was always hounding him for sex so she could get pregnant. She didn't know that he had a visectomy.

My wife and I have fertility issues so we got a later start.  We're currently trying for a 3rd and she's 37. We won't try after 40 but  I'm pretty sure you guys will be fine.

My wife and I had our 1st at 27 and 2nd and 3rd (twins) at 29.  She was a champ and carried them full-term (for twins, which is 38-weeks +/-).  No issues so far with any of them, although my wife and I have lost our sanity.

As a much older man on his second marriage with kids from both, listen to me.

What should be scaring you is that your GIRLFRIEND of TWO YEARS is pressuring you to GET MARRIED specifically for the purpose of HAVING KIDS.

That is a Tsar-Bomba-sized red flag.  Huge.  YUUUUUGE.

I am not being a dick.  I am not teasing you or poking fun.  I am deadly serious.  Contrary to popular belief, the most dangerous thing in the world is not a Marine and his rifle; it is a woman who cannot hear the voice of reason because her biological alarm clock has gone from tick-tick to RIIIIINNNNGGGG RIIIIINNNNNNGGGGG.

I would be far less worried if you were currently two years into your marriage.  That would mean you've gotten a couple of years of "it's just us" time as a married couple (trust me, dating is not the same as marriage), your relationship had "succeeded" for it's first two years of marriage, and it would imply that you had several years of dating each other to create a solid foundation for a marriage.  Under those circumstances, there is nothing abnormal about starting to think about kids, as long as you both agreed before your marriage that you were both firmly committed to having kids together.  

That's not your situation.  You have only been dating for two years.  You're not even married.  Generally, 30 to late 30s is a "healthy" age range for carrying a baby.  This rush to pregnancy is illogical.

Having kids because you're happily married is great.  Getting married because she is desperate to have kids is insane.

Mark my words and mark them well.  She is not looking for you to be her husband.  She is not even looking for a husband.  She is looking for someone to get her pregnant.  BTDT.  "A husband" and "you as that husband" are secondary to that.  Marriage merely provides a veneer of stability, security, and virtue to cover that craving for kids.  She may not even consciously realize that she is obsessed with finding Mr. Right Now instead of Mr. Right.  Regardless, them feelz of "babies babies babies" is smacking her right in the uterus like a punch from Mike Tyson.  It's clouding her judgment; don't let it cloud yours.


Fear is a powerful indicator; it helps us know when and how to fight or flee.  She is the predator.  You are the prey.  Feel fear.  Run away.

LISTEN TO THIS MAN !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



DONT rush into having kids, make sure your relationship is stable for the long haul.
Having kids will only bring more stress into your relationship.
Don't read the stats of medical problems with kids, they push a lot of fear, all you hear about is autistic this and that.

The 1st kid took about a year of trying.  The 2nd kid only needed one shot.

Its a bit if a numbers game. My wife got pregnant when we weren't trying at 35 and miscarried early on. After that we tried for 4 years and did fertility treatments but we were ultimately unsuccessful, and eventually had a child through embryo adoption. Could we have had a child naturally? Maybe but the odds were against us.

Conversely, my buddy's wife had their last kid at 41 with zero problems. Everyone's different but nature still takes a toll on the odds as you get older.

12 years ago my now ex-wife gave birth to our perfectly healthy daughter, Ex was 45 when she conceived and only a month shy of 46 when our daughter was born.

As others have said this is a numbers game.  I started by building an NFA stamp collection.  Trust me when I tell you stamps are cheaper then kids.  They're cheaper to feed also.

Tell her she can have a kid every 10 stamps

I was born when both parents were 34 ish.
I'm normal-ish...I think?

OP, please ignore posts like this one that have no basis in science but only anecdote.  Yes, many women over 40 do have children, but they represent a tiny percentage of children born and grossly over-represent children with birth defects.

I am 42, wife is 33. We have a 1 month old daughter, who is so far healthy.

That said, if you plan to have kids, the sooner the better. I will be 62 with a 20 year old kid, for some perspective. I got a late start in life by about ten to fifteen years due to circumstances outside of my control, so I wasn't situated well to start a family until my mid 30's. Better late than never, but sooner is better still.

When the woman hits 35 the risk of downs starts to rise exponentially and her obgyn will be more cautious. With that being said there is good genetic testing now and I delivered a lot of babies from older mothers that were fine when I was on obgyn for medical school.

These are the odds:
Any Chromosomal disorder (Downs Syn in parentheses)
Age 30: 1:385 (1:1000)
Age 40: 1:66 (1:100)

The odds are in your favor even at age 40.