Corinne Sweet: The truth about older mothers

The media image is a Teflon-coated bitch who wants to buy a baby like a Marc Jacobs bag Published: 07 June 2007 I was "lucky" enough to have a baby after the age of 40 - albeit by Caesarian. So I can thoroughly understand the 40-plus women's desperate urge to surge towards fertility clinics for IVF treatment that has been reported this week. Although I didn't get as far as IVF, because I was fortunate enough to conceive "naturally", I can recognise the drive to put oneself through enormous expense and discomfort in the hope of "getting one in before closing time". The media image of the older mother is a Teflon-coated Apprentice-style bitch who wants it all on her own terms, and who would like to buy a baby like a Marc Jacobs handbag and then strap it into her Chelsea tractor and whoosh off to Harvey Nicks. In my experience, the women who try for babies late, and who go through the gruelling IVF hoops, are those who realise that their lives will probably feel incomplete if they don't at least try to have a baby. One woman I interviewed for my book on late motherhood had spent years doubled up with endometriosis. After being told that she would never conceive, her first and only round of IVF failed, leaving her broke and hopeless at 41. She'd married late and knew that having a baby was a distant dream. But the stimulation of her ovaries led to her conceiving naturally and having a healthy child at 42. Taking the risk totally turned her own, and her new husband's, life around. Let's get one thing straight: women over 40 don't "forget" to have children (as per the famous postcard "I can't believe I forgot to have children"); nor are they so career-obsessed that they blot babies out completely. The issues are more complex. Few women find the right parental partner straight away. Mr Right is as elusive as Bridget Jones in a thong. Most of us kiss a helluva lot of frogs only to find they fail to turn into princes. Late babies can often be the deliberate product of furtive one-night stands, sex with an ex, or a mercy shag with a willing friend. Also, as we've become more picky about partners, and as emotionally literate single men are as rare as purple pears, parenthood may well only be possible once an emotionally healthy relationship develops - after 40. The longed-for baby becomes the icing on the late wedding cake, perhaps with a partner who has children in tow from a first, even second, relationship. Or, as gay and lesbian marriages are now possible, it might be a baby is sought by a homosexual couple to seal their relationship. IVF might well replace the turkey baster for many lesbians who have, in the past, had to conceive furtively through the generosity of male friends. Delaying babies until later in life is psychologically sound for many of us who simply weren't "ready" before. We have a notion of being psychologically prepared for parenthood, by which we mean not as crazy or selfish as we were in our twenties, even thirties. Our parents and grandparents had kids as a matter of course. For us, it's a definite decision - maybe made after years on the couch. We ask ourselves: "Am I ready for parenthood?" It means, can I make the necessary emotional (and financial) sacrifices needed to have a child? Can I put them first? By 40, most of us are partied out. Not all, but most. Older parents make good parents. Research by Dr Julia Berryman of the University of Leicester Parenthood Research Group, and others, show that late parents are often more tolerant, patient, kind and, most important, loving. Simply, a late child is often a very, very wanted child. So how is it for the children? Are older parents an embarrassment? Or do children of late parents get a good deal? Again, research shows these children score well in comprehension and reading tests, and are generally more emotionally secure and confident. The early demise of late parents is not all bad, either, especially if a child of 40-plus parents has had a good 40 years of solid, loving input. Plus, they won't have to look after their own Aged Ps well into their own old age and should reap the benefits of any inheritance in their sprightly middle age. The notion that droves of career women are frivolously delaying pregnancy until 40 and then hoping to drain the NHS of vital resources for a designer baby is a misogynistic myth. Most women worth their Top Shop wedges know that leaving it late holds serious risks. After all, only around 2 per cent of first births are to women fortyplus. The biggest problem is the pernicious influence of the cult of celebrity which makes lesser mortals want to emulate the likes of Madonna or Angelina. These role models make young women think fame and money will buy anything - including children. However, for real women, with real lives, and real limits on budget, energy and resources, having a late baby via IVF is not simply a fashionistic whim. It's a calculated risk, taken under the din of the ruthless biological clock, usually after a great deal of life-planning, soul-searching - and a fatalistic sense of better to have tried and failed than never to have tried at all. Corinne Sweet is a writer, broadcaster and psychologist, and the author of 'Birth Begins at Forty'