Tick Tock, Tick Tock!

You can’t Botox your ovaries; it’s a sentence I read the other day that has stuck with me. It’s been playing on my mind and I can’t shake it. The article itself focused on the argument that women should consider starting a family soon after graduating from uni in order to diminish the risk of tackling fertility problems down the line. In other words, tick tock tick tock!

I’m 27, I left uni five years ago and although I very much want and see children in my future I’m nowhere near the point of planning a pregnancy. I’m in a long term relationship, I live in a rented apartment with my significant other and I work freelance as a writer. Life is good. I travel regularly and enjoy a life that affords me a disposable income. However, throw a baby into the mix right now and I think things would start to look a little less positive.

Now I’m a believer of what will be will be and if it was to happen I’d/we’d make it work. That’s what life is about after all isn’t it? But what has stuck in my throat is the realisation that even though by today’s standards I’m not too old to not have children, genetically nothing has changed and in actual fact 27 is getting on and that if I’m serious about having family then I ought to start making some serious plans for my future.

Dr Gillian Lockwood, medical director of the Midland Fertility Clinic, said in the article that the optimum age for a woman to fall pregnant was 25, therefore according to her schedule I’m two years too late! She claims that fertility is at its peak and the risk of miscarriage and genetic conditions like Down’s syndrome were at their lowest during this time in a women’s life.”It may not be true that women should be having babies at the time of the GCSEs but they shouldn’t leave it much later than graduation,” Dr Lockwood said.

Now it may well be the best time according to science but what about according to real life? At 25 women are still very much working out who they are and where they are going. Focusing on careers, paying back mountains of student debts and desperately trying to get a foot on the property ladder. Then for some there is the question of a partner; of trying to find someone who you can stand past two dates let alone someone to procreate with.

It seems ludicrous to me that at aged 27 I’m even worrying about these things but like Dr Lockwood said “you can’t Botox your ovaries” and while in our late twenties we might still look youthful on the outside with out toned bodies and good skin, on the inside it’s a different story. Our ovaries know exactly what it says on our birth certificate and no amount of creams, cosmetic procedures or diet can stop the cruel tricks of time.