Biologically speaking, we’re born with all the eggs we’ll ever have. Once we hit puberty and start menstruating, we’ll generally release a mature egg each cycle. But the drop in egg count is even more dramatic than that, and our numbers will lower each year until we hit menopause.
In fact, it’s estimated the average woman has just 1,000 oocytes (also called egg cells) by the time she reaches age 51. This is a drastic drop from 500,000 during puberty and 25,000 in your mid-30s.
While getting pregnant with fewer egg cells isn’t impossible, it may mean that you’ll have a bit more trouble pregnant naturally.
Egg quality also decreases as we age, which can make conception difficult or increase the risk of chromosomal abnormalities, which can make early pregnancy loss more likely.
The general advice is to see a fertility specialist if you’ve tried to conceive naturally for six months without any results and you’re over age 35.
However, if you’re actively trying to conceive in your 50s, you may want to talk to your doctor about seeing a fertility specialist even sooner, due to the rapid depletion of oocytes.
The specialist may first suggest taking fertility drugs to ensure that you ovulate. This may be especially helpful during perimenopause, when your cycles are increasingly unpredictable.
Sometimes, taking these drugs is enough to result in a successful pregnancy after very little time. These drugs can increase the number of mature eggs you release during a cycle, therefore creating more “targets” for sperm.
Or — if you’re still having trouble conceiving — your fertility specialist will tell you about other options. They may recommend in vitro fertilization (IVF), a method that retrieves eggs from your body and then fertilizes them with sperm separately in a lab before injecting them back into the uterus.
Multiple eggs are taken at a time, since not all are expected to be successfully fertilized. You may end up with zero, one, or multiple embryos after completing a round of IVF.
If you’re 50, your doctor may suggest that you have more than one embryo transferred (if you’ve got them) to increase your chances that one of them “sticks.”
However, it’s entirely possible that all the embryos you have transferred will implant — resulting in pregnancy with multiples! Because this makes for a higher risk pregnancy, make sure you discuss the possibility with your doctor and partner.
We’re not going to sugarcoat it — your age will be a topic of discussion during this process. (This is true even for women in their upper 30s.) Because of possibly lower egg quality, you may be encouraged to do genetic testing on the embryo(s) that come out of the IVF process.
This can be expensive, and the results can’t be guaranteed with 100 percent accuracy. But choosing the best embryos — ones without detectable genetic abnormalities at this stage — may give you the greatest likelihood of pregnancy success.
Using frozen eggs
Freezing your eggs (cryopreservation) when you’re younger is a great option if you think you may want to add to your family later in life. This also involves IVF. The idea is that you have eggs (or embryos) frozen until you’re ready to use them, if at all.
Cryopreservation isn’t guaranteed to create a successful pregnancy, but as we’ve mentioned, your egg quality tends to be higher when you’re younger. On the flip side, live birth rates are lower from frozen eggs.
Using a gestational carrier
Your 50s can bring about a few conception issues, including the inability to release eggs, lack of fertilization, and an increased risk of miscarriage.
In these situations, you might be looking at a possible gestational carrier, another woman who could help carry your child to term. Ask your doctor how you might find a surrogate.
A gestational carrier can become pregnant via IVF using embryos created with donor eggs or your own. Your options will depend on your preferences and fertility health.
Distinguishing between pregnancy symptoms and menopause
A pregnancy test — one done at home and then verified at your doctor’s office — is the only surefire way to determine if you’re truly pregnant.
You don’t want to go by symptoms alone because the early signs of pregnancy can be similar to those of menopause. These include mood changes and fatigue — which can also signal your period is coming, for that matter.
Remember that true menopause doesn’t occur until you’ve gone without your period 12 months in a row. If your periods are hit and miss, you could be in the perimenopause stage where you still have eggs left.
As a rule of thumb, if you’re still menstruating, you still have eggs and can very well get pregnant.
So if you’re still getting periods and trying to conceive, be sure to track your cycles and get a pregnancy test if you’ve missed a period. As your body ages, carrying a baby can be a bit more challenging. However, all pregnant women have some discomfort and just as every pregnancy is different, each creates different symptoms.
In the post menopause stage, your pregnancy will be much more closely monitored.
While not necessarily easy, if you want to have a baby in your 50s and you haven’t hit menopause yet, you do have options. Before you try to conceive, talk to your doctor about your health and whether there are any risk factors that could interfere.
The number of eggs you have naturally declines exponentially throughout your 40s and 50s. So if you haven’t had luck conceiving naturally within a few months, you should get a referral to a fertility specialist.
Abayomi Ajayi
MD/CEO Nordica Fertility
Centreinfo@abayomiajayi.com.ng,
