Childlessness and Regret

>"In reality, only 3-5% of women in their early 40s are able to have a live birth using in vitro fertilization."

This is in-vitro only, right? If so, what difference does it make? If you're 41 and want a child, just conceive the traditional way.

I know (at least) two women who had children in their 40s. Neither had any problems with the pregnancy or birth.

That is rather depressing I must confess.

However, the stats seem kinda off. "Ultra-achievers" are only at 100K a year? Seems hardly as high as most "ultra-achievers" i've met or learned of. I mention it because that number changes the pay-offs to putting off kids.

Regardless, it all sounds pretty close to the truth...I know I learned early on from my mum that she had to settle for "high achiever" as a trade off for having me at a younger age and reaping the benefits of spending more time with her daughter while she's still young. Yet, she also repeatedly makes the point of how high the trade off was (I would like to think she doesn't regret it!)and that affected my preferences.

I know I must build (at least...) a 10-year career (including degrees) in my field of study before I have kids if I want to secure a good position. Having babies kills your networking for a year or two, changes people's perspectives ("oh you have a baby now, you should really not work as hard and focus on your kids rather"), and affects your productivity immensely (such as availability for travel and that kind of stuff...you don't want to be missing bdays, believe me).

In any case, it seems like it is a costant trade-off where women are initially reluctant to have kids and later are confronted with the challenge of balancing it all and giving up career opportunities.
And don't even get me started on the pool of possible men you could marry...

Bye bye IQ... bye bye Gene Pool.

You will be missed, while we still have the capacity to miss.

Why the portentous "high-achieving" when it turns out that the criterion is just "well paid"?

One problem with measurement of this particular problem is that you can't compare the numbers of women who choose the low-achieving have-a-child option who regret that choice.

When there is a time expiration on a choice it is easy to regret not doing it and then claim that you hadn't meant to make that choice, when in fact you did make a (semi-) conscious decision about it by giving it low priority. And anyone could say they would still like to have children- they might also like to spend a year traveling in Asia. They haven't demonstrated the preference though, its probably low priority.

Those who gave the achievement option a low priority, had children and regretted it would never tell you that they wished they hadn't because it would amount to saying that they don't love their kid. Its too late- the kid has their genes, no matter what they love the thing.

So, the survey is always going to be biased in favor of finding excessive regret about *not* having children. It doesn't even consider the reverse. What if the majority of women are making the wrong choice by having children?

My first thought on "In reality, only 3-5% of women in their early 40s are able to have a live birth using in vitro fertilization" is that the word "without" was left out. At least, the success rate is more like 20% for 41-42 year-olds at our local IVF clinic. And it's even higher if donor eggs are used.

Nationwide over-40 IVF success rate

It's over 5% even for women 44 years old. And if I'm reading it right, that's per attempt, not overall, so the overall success rate should be even higher.

Of course, each attempt is quite expensive, so these stats are not exactly good news for women trying to have children late in life...

I also have concerns with the statement "89% of young high-achieving women believe they can get pregnant into their 40s. In reality, only 3-5% of women in their early 40s are able to have a live birth using in vitro fertilization." It seems to overstate the fertility issues associated with aging.

Per a recent lecture on infertility (I'm a medical student) the national rate of infertility is around 10% after one year of trying. By your early 30s this rate is 1/7, late 30s is 1/5, and early 40s is 1/4. This is the rate for the couple, meaning that a portion (~35%) is due to a male factor, and the remainder is due to a female factor. So by this account a woman in her early 40s would still have a 75% chance of getting pregnant within one year.

Additionally, there are many ways to treat infertility, and IVF is only one method. Obviously the odds of getting pregnant decrease significantly with age, but it's far from impossible.

Of course, someone wishing to delay having children would also want to take into account other pregnancy complications associated with increased maternal age (miscarriage, chromosomal abnormalities, preeclampsia, etc).