One thing I was psyched to hear about: In Japan, there are about 7-8 live births per year from women age 47. Donor eggs are illegal in Japan, so that's why they keep on trying with their own eggs. Cool, huh?

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I asked my RE [reproductive endocrinologist] if she had ever seen someone my age have a baby naturally, and she said no. I read this site, and I see a different world.

I do know someone personally whose mother had him when she was 50 or 51. He is as normal as can be. It's my best friend's husband. He is from Northern Africa.

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However, I was recently doing some research about another family that lived in the mid 1800's. The mother had had six kids — her first at age 24 and her fifth at age 36. Then she had her sixth child at age 48 (!!)

Obviously no donor eggs were used!! LOL. I don't know if she had any miscarriages in between #5 and #6. Her husband was six years older than she was. This last child went on to have six kids of his own.

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I think Eleanor of Aquitaine (Queen of England in the 1100's) had something like 8-9 (more?) kids, and bore her last while in her 40's. Life was certainly tougher in the 1100's than it is now!!!

Edited to add: Born 1122, married King Henry II in 1152, Over the next thirteen years, she bore Henry five sons and three daughters: William, Henry, Richard, Geoffrey, John, Matilda, Eleanor, and Joanna. So she would have been 43 at her youngest child's birth.

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I can't tell you how many people have told me stories about their own great-grandmothers and grandmothers having a (healthy) last baby at ages 46, 47, 48, etc.

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Category: 43, 46, 47, 48, 50, 51