Fertile at 47: ‘I felt ungrateful to let my fertility wither on the vine’
The writer was happy as a mother of one, but when she had her fertility tested in midlife, things weren’t quite so straightforward.
Examining how being fertile in middle age has complicated my life is akin to when I stuck my hand up the day after the school play and told the other children, “My mum says I was the best.” Which is relevant, as being weirdly superfertile has — like many of my positive traits — been passed on to me by my mother. Mum conceived her children in midlife, “a happy accident”, with no intervention, as did her own mother, as did her cousin, as did her niece, as did I (my daughter is now 11). Most recently my sister got pregnant with her daughter at 39, as easily as if she’d been reaching over for a cup of tea that had been placed for her on the bedside table. My family is a matriarchy of late bloomers with good options.
This is very much not the dominant story for most women when discussing fertility. The loveliest secret that emerged after George Michael’s death was of him paying for the IVF treatment of a stranger he saw, on a daytime talk show, crying about her struggle to get pregnant. When I was living in New York (I was born in London but my mum is American) in the Noughties, I held my best friend every month as she strove to get pregnant in her early thirties, collapsing each time it didn’t stick. I was there in LA in 2015 when one of my closest friends did IVF, with only one of the triplets growing in her making it to term.
I had seen enough pain about this subject that, when I got divorced at 41 and moved to London with my then five-year-old, I understood why friends wanted me to date as soon as possible. It was all about remarrying while still being fertile enough to have children with a new partner.
Look at the coverage given to Gisele Bündchen, pregnant and planning to remarry at 44. Or Kourtney Kardashian, 45, whose marriage in 2022 was immediately followed by several gruelling rounds of IVF. Meanwhile, I was so stubborn about not dating that I wouldn’t even go to mixed-sex dinner parties. The alarm in the eyes of people who cared about me was barely coded: if I coupled up and got pregnant, I’d have a kind of proof that it wasn’t my “fault” the original family unit fell apart. Everyone wanted it for me while it was still possible. Yet I knew that, for me, it was possible for far longer than is standard.
I’ve had the AMH test (which allows doctors to estimate the number of follicles in your ovaries — the more you have, the more eggs you release, the better your chances of pregnancy) a few times. Once, in my mid-thirties and newly married, I came off birth control for five days to do the test, and by the time they got back to me to congratulate me on being very fertile for my age I was pregnant.
I suppose I should mention: I’ve never been a drinker, maybe three drinks per year — it’s not for me. I’ve never smoked, never been into coke. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was ten. I’ve exercised three days a week since I was 21. These things could contribute to my fertility or have nothing to do with it. My doctor says the most important factor relating to fertility is that I’ve never been really underweight.
“I know how much it would mean to many women to be able to conceive at all, let alone in midlife. My friends had wanted it all for me as a fresh start. But I am my own fresh start.”
Besides my mum being older than the other mums at school, another unusual thing about her was that she taught us we didn’t need to have children to make our lives better. She loved us madly, she said, but people have the same ups and downs with or without kids. Most young women don’t get taught that, or, if they do, it’s by a narcissistic mother saying “you ruined things” rather than a loving one. I sometimes think the confidence she gave us in life without children may have contributed to the ease with which my sister, and I, conceived.
I had an abortion in my twenties. I’d travelled to New Zealand with my boyfriend and got the birth control timings wrong. When I went back to America, he stayed over there. My mum flew to New York from London to be with me as I recovered. We split a Percocet I’d been prescribed and had the best time watching her favourite old Technicolor movies.
Donald Trump’s first presidency coincided with my marital breakdown. I was living in LA, and all the women in my circle, from mothers to teens, made appointments to get ten-year IUDs — we knew Trump would try to overturn abortion access. My mum also warned me that, as I was still living with my estranged husband, if we somehow drifted back together the chance of me getting pregnant again was high. With two kids I knew it would be harder to leave.
After we split for good I went back to London, and in my forties ended up with a much younger man. A lot of older woman/younger guy relationships end because he wants a kid and she can’t have one. So I did an FSH test, which measures egg quality, ovarian reserve and ovary function. Again, I had an off-the-chart score for my age. I couldn’t bring myself to admit I was content with my only child and would never have another — it seemed so ungrateful to let my fertility wither on the vine.
“Put ’em on ice,” my boyfriend said. But despite being unusually fertile, at my age the doctors felt it was better to freeze embryos, not eggs. Then, though, I’d be committing to him being the father of my future child, and I knew there were reasons we might not work out, even without a big age gap. For a while I considered it, studying my viable ovaries on the doctor’s sonogram screen as if holding them up to the light of divination. My mum bequeathed me this wild midlife possibility. What do you do with such an inheritance? I was 45 and felt like my reproductive system and I were Elaine and Benjamin at the end of The Graduate, sitting at the back of bus, going, “We’ve run away together. Now what?”
I’d done the test because I didn’t want the option removed. Nobody does. Just having it — even as something to turn down — made the continuation of our relationship feel possible. So when I did eventually let it all go — the idea of embryos, the relationship — I felt huge guilt. I know how much it would mean to many women to be able to conceive at all, let alone in midlife. My friends had wanted it all for me as a fresh start. But I am my own fresh start.
This year my work has taken me back and forth to Texas, where I see a gynaecologist. Her name is Dr Saima Jehangir and she’s the medical director of Alchemy Wellness, if you happen to need someone great in Austin. “I’m 47. My fertility can’t possibly be what it was tested at a year ago, right?” I asked her.
“Yes, but just because you know from testing that you can still get pregnant, nothing says you could successfully carry it to term.”
Ah! I hadn’t thought that part through. I asked her if we should test again. “You could. But it will only show you a snapshot of that afternoon.”
I lay in the stirrups thinking back to a perfect afternoon with my mum, YouTubing Cher’s Seventies variety show. We watch TV together because, lately, when she leaves the apartment, Mum tends to fall. She had her children late and she is old. Really old. Her funeral requests hang in an envelope above her computer, the only thing she has ever sealed for me that I haven’t been tempted to open early.
Perhaps my fertility quandary of the past few years was a distraction from the ending I’ve been dreading. I have a soul mum, a soul sister and a soul daughter, and together we make the four points you need for spell casting. The point is, we are going to be one less — it’s coming and I can’t stop it. Maybe I thought by getting pregnant again I could create a replacement for my mum. But there is no replacement. I don’t think I was the best in the school play, but I’ll always remember her telling me I was.
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