Becoming a mother at 50 — what it's like having a baby later in life

Did you know you can be both perimenopausal and pregnant?

The Netflix show Sex Education has been doing a lot of educating on the topic of age and fertility recently, with Jean Milburn (played by Gillian Anderson) falling unexpectedly pregnant at 48.

The series has also offered some insight into the difficulties older mothers can face along the way.

But how does that compare to real life? We spoke to Michelle, a mum from Brisbane, about her experience. Similar to Jean, she fell pregnant naturally at 47, however that pregnancy ended in miscarriage.

A couple of years and a number of IVF cycles later, she gave birth to her first child just two weeks after her 50th birthday. Here's the story in her own words.

The path to pregnancy

I was probably 39 or 40 when I decided that I really did want to have children and I started trying to conceive when I was about 41. 

I thought about IVF through these years but I wasn't in the financial position to afford it. Unless you've got the finances, you really can't go down that path.

And it can be harder if you're an older mum as a lot of the clinics want you to be under a certain age.

Once you hit 45 or 46, your chances of actually conceiving with your own eggs are super low — it's around 1 per cent.

Before I started the round of IVF, I had to do every test you can think of before I was able to do the cycle.

My husband and I had to buy eggs from overseas, which was really costly. It was close to $45,000.

We bought nine eggs and only three were viable, then we went through three cycles of IVF and didn't get pregnant. It was devastating.

We thought, 'Can we really afford to do that again?'

Then we were given three donor embryos (IVF patients with excess embryos can donate them through the clinic).

I fell pregnant with the first one straight away but then when I went for the 12-week scan it was a blighted ovum — the gestational sac was there, but there was no baby inside.

We decided to go ahead and do another embryo transfer on the next cycle, in February 2020, and I fell pregnant with my son.

A constant worry

I thought it wasn't going to work. I thought something bad was going to happen.

I had three lots of bleeding early on and each time I thought the pregnancy had ended.

My doctor told me that I wasn't allowed to do any activity. Thankfully, I was able to work from home but I couldn't really enjoy the pregnancy at all.

Up until the 12-week scan, you're worried about everything being ok, and then up until the 20-week scan, you're worried about the development.

For me, there were also fears of high blood pressure and gestational diabetes, which I did end up with. I had to see a specialist and needed to watch everything I ate.

A vaginal birth wasn't an option for me, due to my age. The doctor said the safest option was having a cesarean and we didn't want to risk anything.

Luckily, my doctor was so supportive.

He let me go in every week for a scan. I had to pay for that, but it wasn't an issue, I just wanted peace of mind.

Finding community

My close friends are really happy for me. It's very different though; most of them have grown-up children and many have actually got grandchildren!

My husband and I have struggled with not having family close by to assist us and I've felt isolated.

I took my son to the YMCA the other day. You see all the mums in little groups talking to each other but no one ever really talks to me.

I don't really have anything in common with the younger mothers.

I try to remember that there are always good people out there and not to worry about the others.

If a person believes they're capable of having a baby, and they are still going to be able to offer the child a great life, why does it matter to anybody else?

People should really keep their opinions to themselves.

Looking to the future

The biggest thing I worry about, as an older mum, is being there for my son.

I worry about my health deteriorating.

You think about all those things; you think about the will, you think about godparents — I've found it quite distressing.

Some friends say, 'Well, just don't think like that', but I need to think about this! You've got to be prepared.

We actually opened up an email account for our son when he was born.

Sometimes I write little things to him. I tell him what we did that day. I tell him how much I love him.

I still have one embryo left and my husband and I are still deciding if we're going to use it or not.

I would say we're probably leaning more to 'no'. It's all been very difficult — but I don't know.