50-Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child: ‘We Wouldn’t Give Up’

50-Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child: ‘We Wouldn’t Give Up’

(Link): 50-Year-Old Woman Gives Birth to First Child: ‘We Wouldn’t Give Up’

Nov 24, 2021
By Ann W. Schmidt

Susie Troxler always wanted to be a mother. Now, at the age of 50, she is.

Troxler gave birth to her first child, Lily, on Sept. 29 at Cone Memorial Hospital in Greensboro, North Carolina.

“It was so surreal,” Troxler said in a press release from the hospital. “Everything had come together for that moment to happen. It’s hard to wrap our heads around. We’re no longer just husband and wife, we’re ‘mommy’ and ‘daddy.’”

Troxler and her husband Tony, 61, were married in 2008 and tried multiple times to have children at first, naturally. Then, about two years ago, she started in-vitro fertilization treatment and later, egg donation, FOX Television Stations reported.

Imagine a Future Without Sex by James Lee

Imagine a Future Without Sex by James Lee

(Link): Imagine a Future Without Sex by James Lee

Reproductive technology may lead us to realize too late that being human is better than playing God.

…. All this creates unprecedented ethical challenges in the immediate future. Consider the parents who use IVF to raise their children’s IQ.

If the children repeat the process for another generation, taking advantage of scientific advances during the interim, they could bring the total average gain in the grandchildren north of 10 points—a huge gain.

That advantage could be big enough to give the grandchildren radically disproportionate representation at the highest levels of science, finance, information technology, medicine, law and business.

Designer Baby Revolution: Can We Outlaw Sexual Reproduction?

Designer Baby Revolution: Can We Outlaw Sexual Reproduction?

(Link): Designer Baby Revolution: Can We Outlaw Sexual Reproduction?

By Cameron English — August 30, 2021

Could governments mandate that we quit reproducing sexually for the sake of public health? It sounds outlandish, but there are prominent thinkers making that case.

Their argument is superficially plausible but ultimately absurd, both for scientific and ethical reasons.

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…. However this particular dispute ends, the opposing sides and the underlying point of contention, who controls your body, aren’t going anywhere soon.

The reason is that advances in health care are enabling physicians to identify the genetic underpinnings of serious diseases and take preventative measures before their patients suffer the debilitating effects of these disorders.

Why I Have Zero Regrets About My Childless Life by C. Zacharek

Why I Have Zero Regrets About My Childless Life by C. Zacharek

(Link): Why I Have Zero Regrets About My Childless Life

Excerpts:

I’d always wanted babies. Probably. Eventually. Possibly. When I graduated from college, in the early 1980s, friends started having them while I remained happily unencumbered.

Even after I married, family planning was more like having no plan, other than putting it off until later. When I reached the age when I was supposed to be desperate to be a mother–early to mid-30s–I didn’t feel desperate; I only felt unsure.

My sole mistake at the time, I see now, was not trusting that I’d be O.K.–maybe even better than O.K.–with or without a baby.

Today, more and more women are choosing not to have children, and while the stigma hasn’t completely lifted, it’s not what it once was.

The Overlooked Emotions of Sperm Donation

(Link): The Overlooked Emotions of Sperm Donation

by Ashley Fetters

July 9, 2018

“My hope is that people think about how this is more than a transaction,” says one family therapist.

Sperm donation offers a tidy solution to an aggravating problem: When a person or a couple wants a baby and needs a different ingredient than what they’ve currently got to make one, a man with viable sperm swoops in to help.

…As simple a transaction as sperm donation can seem to be, though, some find it to be stressful or isolating—and because assisted reproductive technology is a relatively new, rapidly developing field, the social and emotional challenges that can arise between the participants in a sperm donation are, for many, uncharted.

Why More Women Are Having Babies at 50 and Beyond

Why More Women Are Having Babies at 50 and Beyond

(Link):  Why More Women Are Having Babies at 50 and Beyond

Excerpts:

….Duckworth [Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill] is expected to deliver her second child a few weeks after she turns 50, a time when many woman expect the end of fertility and the beginning of menopause to be around the corner.

The Senator said she delayed having children to pursue her career and, by the time she was ready, she had to overcome infertility.”The early part of my career, which was also, [like] for most women, your twenties and early thirties, your prime fertility years,” she told ABC station WLS in Chicago, “were also my career-building years.”

She is not alone. Duckworth is among a growing number of women, including celebrities like Janet Jackson and Sophie B. Hawkins, tackling motherhood in their fifties.

Overall birthrates in the United States have been declining for years, reaching a record low in 2016, according to National Bureau of Health Statistics, and provisional data suggests a new low for 2017.

Womb Transplants Could Allow Men to Have Babies ‘Tomorrow’, Claims Expert

Womb Transplants Could Allow Men to Have Babies ‘Tomorrow’, Claims Expert

I wonder, do men get the annoying monthly menstrual period to go along with it, which can come with cramps and backaches? *fingers crossed*

What a strange world we’re living in.

(Link): Womb Transplants Could Allow Men to Have Babies ‘Tomorrow’, Claims Expert

by V Fletcher, November 2017

Blokes would not be able to deliver the baby naturally, but could give birth by cesarean

Raising Concerns About a Widely Used Test to Measure Fertility by C. Caron

Raising Concerns About a Widely Used Test to Measure Fertility by C. Caron

(Link): Raising Concerns About a Widely Used Test to Measure Fertility by C. Caron

Excerpts

Oct 16, 2017

[She was told her eggs were too old or not good enough, so she’d likely not be able to have a kid and the fertility treatment was very expensive and not covered by her insurance]

…Two years later, she remarried. Ms. Bourquin and her husband conceived naturally on the first try. Her doctor was “stunned,” Ms. Bourquin said.

…New research published last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association underscores what Ms. Bourquin experienced, and what many fertility experts have already observed: AMH doesn’t dictate a woman’s reproductive potential.

And although AMH testing is one of the most common ways that doctors assess a woman’s fertility — it’s especially important for women struggling with infertility — an AMH value isn’t always telling.

Single, 54, and a New Dad: Why Some Start Families Late by A. Ellin

Single, 54, and a New Dad: Why Some Start Families Late

(Link):  Single, 54, and a New Dad: Why Some Start Families Late by A. Ellin

Excerpts:

August 5, 2016

SPARKY CAMPANELLA never heard the thrumming of a biological clock. But his “sociological clock” — his sense that he was missing out on something important in life — boomed mightily. At the age of 54, he decided to do something about it. He became a father.

He was single, but so what? “I decided I could either do it myself, or wait for the right partner to come along,” said Mr. Campanella, a Los Angeles fine arts photographer whose son, Rhys, is a little over 1 year old. Over the years he had dated women who had children of their own, but he realized that he didn’t want to be a stepdad.

….It’s a question many childless people over 50 are asking themselves. Of course, dealing with night feedings and rambunctious 2-year-olds are not for the faint of heart. But with their finances in order and their careers in place, with their life spans extended, some older people are concluding: Why not start — or continue — raising children in later life?

With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

(Link): With Menopause Reversal, Women Could Be Forever Fertile

The hot flashes, night sweats, and vaginal dryness characteristic of menopause may no longer also signal the end of a woman’s fertility thanks to a blood treatment used to heal wounds.

Presenting their findings at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology annual meeting in Helsinki, Finland, this month, researchers in Greece said they were able to reverse menopause in roughly 30 women, including one who entered menopause at 40 but five years later menstruated again, reports (Link): New Scientist.

Why does society still view childless women like me with suspicion? by E. Day

Why does society still view childless women like me with suspicion?

(Link): Why does society still view childless women like me with suspicion? by E. Day

Excerpts:

• Remarks like Leadsom’s go far beyond the usual cut-and-thrust of the political arena and reveal how (Link): childless women are still viewed with innate suspicion. This, in spite of the fact that women in their mid-40s are now almost twice as likely to be childless as their parents’ generation. One in five women born in 1969 is childless today, compared with one in nine women born in 1942.
• But there remains a taboo, a retrograde belief that (Link): we are in some way unnatural for not fulfilling our biological destiny. How else to explain the fact that the first question many people ask when I meet them is whether I have children, followed by an uncomfortable pause when I say that I don’t. “But why?” I can see them thinking. “What’s wrong with her?”

Mothers Over 40 in Record Baby Boom: Number of Women Who Give Birth in Their Fifth Decade or Later Trebles

Mothers Over 40 in Record Baby Boom: Number of Women Who Give Birth in Their Fifth Decade or Later Trebles

This article is from 2010. I could have sworn I already did a blog post on this, but I looked around my blog a little bit and don’t see it.

(Link): Mothers over 40 in record baby boom: Number of women who give birth in their fifth decade or later trebles

By Steve Doughty for the Daily Mail
 26 May 2010

A baby boom among older women has trebled the number giving birth after their 40th birthday.

Almost 27,000 babies were born to mothers over 40 last year, figures revealed yesterday.

The unprecedented level is nearly three times the total of 20 years ago and up by 50 per cent over the past decade.

Even during the post-war childbirth peak in the Sixties there were fewer children born to women in their fifth decade and beyond.

Britain now has one of the highest birth rates for older women in the world, with 3.8 per cent of all babies born to mothers over 40. Only Italy has a higher level in Europe.