The Wellness Connection with Fiona Kane

When Is the Right Time to Have a Baby? Let’s Talk Truthfully | Ep. 125

• Fiona Kane • Season 1 • Episode 125

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When is the right time to have a baby? 

In this heartfelt episode of The Wellness Connection, Fiona Kane opens up about her personal journey, the biological realities women face, and the emotional impact of delayed motherhood. She shares honest reflections on fertility, regret, career choices, and the importance of having real conversations about life planning. 

Whether you're in your 20s, 30s, or beyond, this episode invites you to think deeply about what truly matters.

Learn more about booking a nutrition consultation with Fiona: https://informedhealth.com.au/

Learn more about Fiona's speaking and media services: https://fionakane.com.au/

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The Beat of Nature

Music by Olexy from Pixabay



Fiona Kane:

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Connection Podcast. I'm your host, Fiona Kane. Today I'm going to be talking about when is the right age to have children, particularly for women, because we do have a cut-off point. Men obviously can have children or Mick Jagger's got a small child and he just turned 82 the other day so men can have children for a really long time, but women do have a short window. So I just wanted to talk a little bit about that. Now, you know, of course I'm talking about my own experience and I'm talking about some generalizations, and this discussion that I'm having today is not meant to make a judgment on anyone or tell people you should do this or you should do that. Any of that I just always like to say you know, on this podcast, I like to have important conversations about things that matter, and I think this topic really matters, and I think that sometimes women can be deluded into thinking that they've got more time than what they really do, and so I just think that I suppose I want to bring this in as a little bit of a reality check.

Fiona Kane:

At the end of the day, everyone makes their own decisions and does what's right for them, and whatever decision people make. There's consequences. If you have children, there's consequences. If you don't, there's consequences. If you have them young, there's consequences. If you have them older, there's consequences. Every decision in life has just different sets of advantages and different sets of problems. So I'm not sort of pretending that there's one prescription that's right and everyone should do a certain thing this way and this is the perfect way, and blah, blah, blah, but just in general, having a real conversation about fertility windows and why we need to pay attention to these things.

Fiona Kane:

So when I was growing up so I was a teenager in the 80s and I was very heavily influenced by sort of, I suppose, the feminist movement of let's not be tied to kitchens and husbands and children and all that kind of stuff and let's do our own life and let's have our, have our own life and have freedom and all of that. And while there's, you know, obviously there's nothing wrong with making different choices and and I really appreciate that some of the things about feminism have been great, that women do have more choices and that, and that I had certainly had more choices, more opportunities than you know my mother did and my grandmother did and I was able to make different choices. I really respect that and I'm glad that I had those choices. At the same time, though, when we started making those recommendations and when we started sort of championing, championing, championing I can't say the word but when we started promoting that right, when we started promoting that as a way of doing life, I don't think we fully understood then the consequences as far as you know, as far as fertility goes. So I'm just shining a bit of a light on that. No, not about judgment, not about anything like that, just simply shining a light on this issue.

Fiona Kane:

So what we do know what is factual is for women, their prime fertility is when they're in their late teens and twenties, right, so that, for women, is actually physically the best time to have children. It is when you are most fertile. It is also when you are young enough to run around after children and do all the things that you know that children having children entails. So, absolutely, the fact is that having children when you're quite young is actually the perfect age to have children. Biologically. Now, I understand that not all people feel ready and it's not always the right time and all of those things, but just purely biologically, it's a simple fact that when you are young. That is when you are most fertile, and once we get over 30, it can be very challenging for many women to fall pregnant. I know I don't have all the stats in front of me I didn't want to do a whole show about stats but you could easily Google the stats and see that every sort of age gets harder and harder, and not only does it get harder to fall pregnant, but it gets harder to carry a healthy pregnancy, which is why they actually sort of call pregnancies over a certain age as a 35. I think maybe they call them geriatric pregnancies, right? These are just biological realities, right? So there are biological realities we need to confront as women and as couples, right, because they are real.

Fiona Kane:

Now, like I said before, this doesn't take away from the fact that there's other things that maybe are not in place in someone's life, and obviously, you know, ideally you have a stable partner, and that's what you have before you start having children, and so that is ideal. It's not always the case, it doesn't always happen that way. It doesn't mean children can't be loved and can't be welcomed into the world and can't have good lives. Of course they can. So what I would just like to say, though, is like so I shall talk about my experience a little bit and just give you my and this is just my personal experience. Again, no judgment on anyone else. This is what's happened for me is I did. When I was actually younger.

Fiona Kane:

I wasn't one of those people who really desperately wanted to have children. A lot of women around me were, and they didn't really want children. I didn't really feel that way, and I don't know if I'm just not the maternal type or if it's just because of my own childhood challenges and what I saw my mother and my grandmother like, the women in my life. I saw them have a very hard time in marriage and parenting and those things that made their lives very hard, and that they missed out on a lot by doing those things or by making those choices although there weren't so much choices as much in those days so probably a bit of all those things, but all of those things meant that it wasn't something that I was really really keen to do. In actual fact, though, I did meet my husband when I was quite young, so I've been with my husband since I was 18, even though I was like I'm never going to get married. I'm not doing any of that. I actually met the guy when I was 18 and he was the right person. So we've stayed together and we did get married, but I didn't start trying to have children until I was older.

Fiona Kane:

For me also there was a challenge that I had a lot of health challenges in my mid-twenties, which I've talked about before on this podcast that essentially, I had a couple of strokes when I was in my twenties, a couple of small strokes and even though they were small, they had a large impact on my life and I was dealing with diagnosis of at least two autoimmune diseases, one of them being thyroid disease, which can very much affect your fertility, and another one being an autoimmune disease that can cause clotting. And those two autoimmune diseases also very much can affect your fertility or your ability to carry your child to term and all those things. So I was dealing with a lot of that in my 20s and I was so overwhelmed with all of that that I didn't even try to have children then. With all of that that, I didn't even try to have children then and then by the time I got into my 30s probably wasn't really until I was maybe early to mid-30s I can't remember the exact time, but I finally thought oh, you know what, if I don't have a child now, I'll miss out on my opportunity. I really should do this, and I actually think my husband would have made a great father, and my mom really wanted to be a grandma and not that she wasn't, she actually was but my niece lived far away and I lived relatively close to my mother, so I also kind of wanted to do that for her. So I wanted to have a child, probably more for them than for me.

Fiona Kane:

In saying that, though, I did start to sort of feel a bit more of that maternal, and it's not unusual. I think the really common age for it to kick in is around 27. So a lot of women and this is an issue with what I've talked about before, with young children and the gender affirming care in regards to children who are confused about their whether or not they're male, female, those kinds of issues. This is a real issue there, because these children are actually feel like they're quite sure that they won't want to have children, because they absolutely feel like they don't want to do this. But that's really really common in women when they're teenagers maybe not to be who wants that? And of course you don't want that because of all the things you know when you're growing up and you're learning all the things associated with having babies like even just when you first get your period and just dealing with all of that can be quite challenging, right. And then you learn about how babies are conceived and then how they're born, right. There's a lot of things you know when you're younger that seem really overwhelming.

Fiona Kane:

I'd never want to do that. You think back to even when you were a little child and it's like I'll never kiss a boy and then one day you do so. It's the same with fertility, with babies, in that a lot of women say, oh, I don't want that, I would never want that, I don't want children. But then biology kicks in and suddenly you do, and in a lot of cases, desperately do, and that's a really, really common thing I'd say that's probably more common than not that that kicks in for women and it's something they really, really want to do, which is why there's so much money spent in the world on fertility treatments and things right. So the truth is that most women feel fulfilled by having children. They like having children. We're made for that right. We're actually biologically made for that.

Fiona Kane:

So anyway, I'll get back to my story. So essentially I did start trying and it didn't happen. And I spent probably a few years trying to have children and then I kind of had the decision to make whether or not to go the next step up, which would have been all of the fertility treatments and injections and all of that kind of stuff, and for me I actually just decided to put a stop there. I just thought, no, that's not for me. Now again, not a judgment on anyone who chooses that path that just didn't feel like it was the right path for me. So I accepted at that point that I wasn't going to have children.

Fiona Kane:

That wasn't for me and I didn't feel a lot of regret around it at the time and I can't even say now so I'm 54 now and part of me is like, oh well, I didn't have kids, it's fine, I a certain level of success and I'm happy in my marriage, I've got friends, I've got a career, whatever. So there's a part of me that is fine with it. But then there's another part of me that it's funny. There's a different type of regret or a different way of looking at things that I've noticed at this age that I wouldn't have recognized or understood when I was younger, and I want to share this with you and not out of you know poor me. None of the point of this video is poor me, it's more just saying these are the facts, these are my facts, this is my story, and these are the things I see and the stories I hear, just so that other women can understand this, especially younger women, understand that you have to understand the choice you're making. It's really hard when you're young to understand your choices. So one thing I have noticed, though, is for me now is I'm definitely post-menopausal and that's never going to happen, and I'm 54. And, like I said, part of me is fine with that. Part of me has just accepted that a long time ago.

Fiona Kane:

However, in the time now where all the matriarchs in my family have passed away, sort of the main ones on my mom's side of the family, the ones that I was really close to not saying that there's no other ones I love and close to that sort of thing, but there were just these main three women who were the ones who brought me up, basically, and they've all gone. And so, when I was younger, my life, you know, birthdays and Christmas and Mother's Days and all those events were kind of about those people and it was about celebrating those people or celebrating with those people. Right Now they're all gone, those events are quite empty because there isn't someone to celebrate them with. And you know, with Mother's Day it can be. Obviously it's really sad Mother's Day when your mother's passed away. But for a lot of women that's kind of sad and happy, because they're sad that their mother's passed away but they've got children and maybe got grandchildren and so they can still celebrate mothers and they can still celebrate motherhood. While it might be sad as well, right Whereas for women who don't have children, more often than not it's actually just very, very sad and it's quite. Those holidays and things are quite sort of empty and that's something that I didn't predict or didn't understand would happen. You know, when I got older Also, things like when I can't remember stuff, some things maybe that mom told me that I really wanted to remember.

Fiona Kane:

I thought it was important. But then I think, well, who would I tell? Because who is the person you? You know, it would normally be your daughter or your son or whatever, but it would be your child, that you'd pass down the family stories, you'd pass down this sort of family legacy, but there's no one for me really to pass it down to, and so that kind of it's a bit of a sting in that when you realize that, oh, I won't be leaving that kind of a legacy, that doesn't mean you can't leave legacy in different ways. I understand that. So don't sort of go saying, oh, you could do this, you could do I get all of that. All I'm trying to do is just lay out some of the truth of what it is like to be childless at this age, and, like I said, not for a poor me, and not that I can't.

Fiona Kane:

Sort of I talk always. I talk about looking at, you know, reframing things and looking for glimmers and looking for positive things and all of that sort of stuff, and I'm a firm believer in all that. I get that, and I do that right. At the same time, though it is, I think that it is important that we're really honest about these things, because I just don't think there's enough honesty in this, and that's why I want to just be really honest about it, right, so you can have certain feelings and feel a certain way and have certain thoughts, but still be able to get on with it and move on and be okay, and I am okay and that's fine. So this is not a just clarifying when I'm sort of saying these things.

Fiona Kane:

However it is. You know, it is different, right? So it's different. Celebrations for me are different now and I don't have that legacy. I don't have the person to tell the stories to. So the stories that mom told me, I've got no one to tell them to, no one to share them with and no one that's going to carry on that legacy. And I don't have that sort of family legacy thing, thinking that, oh well, you know, when I'm gone, my ancestors are going to live way beyond me and I don't have any of that and there's something about that that is.

Fiona Kane:

I think there's something about that that is in life, that is, having that, having that in your life, having the family and the legacy and all that is kind of just normal and it's, I suppose normal might be the wrong word, but it's how it should be. It's how we were made. We are human beings, we were made to produce offspring and there's a whole kind of wisdom to how it all worked that basically, we got together, we had children, we had grandchildren and we had all these different roles throughout our life based on biology and those biological reality, right. So we were going to be kids at a certain time and we're going to be moms at a certain time and then we're going to be grandmas at a certain time, and all of that. There was roles in that, there was meaning in that and there was just a sort of a wisdom. And just look, there was just a natural evolution about it that we're born, we're kids, we have children, we have grandchildren, whatever. At a certain point we die, right. There's something about this whole sort of biologically that it's just natural and how it should be.

Fiona Kane:

And now there is a whole cohort of women and men I'm talking about specifically women in this but who? That is not that natural thing, that sort of biological thing that we were made for. That didn't happen, right. And so for women in my situation, it's actually kind of well, it's trying to find some sort of meaning or some sort of you know, I can't have the meaning in my children and my grandchildren and making sure that they're all right. So it's more being an auntie or being a sister or being you know as other roles, right, so you can certainly have other roles in your life where you use your mothering energy and you do something good for the world. Or it could be in how I treat my patients, my clients, or with the things I talk about on here, just leaving that legacy of just hey, did you know this? Maybe this is useful information to know, and so there's other ways of making meaning. There's other things I can do, but just sort of letting you know that it is quite different and there can be a lot of emptiness around it.

Fiona Kane:

There can be a lot of just lack of meaning or lack of purpose when you are childless as you get older, and also the thoughts of you know, like when I am dealing with aging parents and parents passing away those sorts of issues. I've been looking after my parents, but that kind of does make you think about who's going to look after me. Right, and my husband is nine years older than me, so it may just be me Again, no one knows what's going to happen in the future and of course I understand there's no guarantee that. You know, I've been in nursing homes before where there's a woman with seven children and none of them come to see her. So I get that having a family is no guarantee that someone's going to look after you. I understand all of that, but I just wanted to share with you the kinds of things that go through your mind, the kinds of things that concern you, the kinds of feelings and thoughts that you have when you're in the situation that I am in and again, not for sympathy or anything like that, just being honest, because I think that it is important that you hear this and so I suppose my message here is that the whole kind of you should have your career and do your career and focus on that, and children will come later.

Fiona Kane:

That is not true for many people. I don't even know if it's most, but it's not true for many. I think. Actually, is it 50% of women who don't have children? Out of the women who don't have children before they're 30, 50% of them, I think, never will right, and so that's just something to have an awareness about. That you really really cut down your chances as you get older. So what I would like to say is that I just would like to encourage young women, young people, to focus more on what a fulfilling life would look like for them and just understand there is a biological reality.

Fiona Kane:

It doesn't mean that women can't have careers Of course they can. And it doesn't mean that women can't have careers Of course they can. And it doesn't mean that women can't choose not to have children Of course they can and some women can't, and that's how it is. So it's not a judgment on anyone. It's just me saying that when you're looking at what you want to do in your life, if having a family is part of that or feels like it might be part of that, I want you to bring your attention to it earlier. I want you to think about it earlier. And yes, you can put your career on hold for a little while and have children and go and focus more on your career later if you want to.

Fiona Kane:

But the whole idea of, oh, I could just freeze my eggs and blah, blah, blah and go and do the career. I'll come back and think about it when I'm 35. Yeah, anyone who sells you that bill of goods is not telling you the truth. And while some women can and do do that and it works out for them, for all those women, for every one of those women, that works out for I can tell you there's a whole lot more that it didn't work out for, and they've spent $10,000 each round for IVF. It's probably more now. That's how much it was. Last time I was aware of how much it was is 10 years ago or something, and they might have spent a hundred thousand dollars, they might have spent two hundred thousand dollars, whatever, and all of the all of everything that goes into doing IVF. It's very traumatic emotionally and physically for many couples and for many women.

Fiona Kane:

So I just wanted to bring attention to the fact that I believe that young women and young couples should think more about family and more about doing that sooner rather than later. Your career can wait and you will be. I believe for the most part, you'll be more fulfilled if you have a family, because I think that's just the way that humans were meant to be and part of what women were biologically here for, not to say again that people can't have careers and all of that. I can hear all the feminists freaking out. Not at all. I think that women can do lots of different things, and that's what's wonderful too, and I'm glad that we can and I'm glad that we have those rights and those choices.

Fiona Kane:

However, there is a biological reality to having babies. I suppose, if I sum up what I'm trying to say here, the summary is there is an absolute biological reality to bearing children that women carry. That is a very, very, it's very, it's very true, very real. And it has a very, very, it's very true, very real. And it has a very, very definite end point. And the longer you leave it, the harder it is and the more likely it is that it won't happen for you and I don't think, for many women.

Fiona Kane:

I'm not saying all, I'll never say all about anyone. I can't speak for everyone, but I think for many women the career feels hollow if they weren't able to have the children. The career doesn't quite fill that right, and again, not all, but just many. I've talked to a lot of women and heard a lot of stories and I just want you to know that when you're thinking about your plans for your life.

Fiona Kane:

The other thing is that when I hear people talking about having children, they talk about the right time. It's not the right time because we need to sort of buy the house or pay off the thing or do the thing or do whatever. There is never going to be a perfectly right time to have children, where everything's perfect. Occasionally, people might achieve that. They might get married and pay off the house and everything's great and good on them. That might be true for some people, but the truth is life is kind of messy and there's never necessarily good times, because always in your life there's going to be a financial issue or there's a job issue, or there's someone who passes away or there's someone who's ill. All this, there's all sorts of things that happen in life that mean that there's never you know, you'll never have all the ducks in a row. It's never going to be perfect, it's never going to be the perfect time.

Fiona Kane:

So and and I think the other thing too is that I believe this generation has in their mind that they have to have all these things in place. So before you can have a child, you've got to have two cars and this and that and a lovely house and blah, blah, blah you actually don't need all of that. Not saying it's not useful and it's not helpful. And I'm not encouraging people to be on the street and starving with their child. I'm not encouraging people to be on the street and starving with their child. I'm not encouraging that. All I'm saying is there's a lot of couples that can they have children and maybe they can live with their parents for the first year or so. Might not be ideal, but that's something you can do, right. Or you might just live in a really ordinary, horrible place for a while when your children are younger and as you get older, when you go back to work, whatever. Maybe you can live in a nicer house or whatever. It is right.

Fiona Kane:

All I'm trying to say is you don't have to have it all perfect before you have children. You certainly have to have a level of stability and, ideally, some support systems around you, maybe someone like a grandma, grandpa, those aunties, whatever. But you don't have to have everything in place and everything perfect before you have children. And I think some people, I think we're convinced it's almost like there's this list that women have in their head now, this list of I've got to have all these things in place before I can have my family. And all I'm trying to say is you don't have to have all of the list in place, and I think that there's this falsity that's been put into people's head that all of these things have to be in place before you can have a family. It's just simply not true. So, anyway, that's just my sort of encouragement to women to think about their fertility, understand that it is finite and understand that really having children when you're younger is really important. I know it can't happen for everyone and this is no judgment on people who this doesn't work out for them. They don't find the partner. Whatever the situation is not meant as a judgment, but I think I like to have important conversations about things that matter.

Fiona Kane:

I think it's important to talk about the truth of what not having children can be like, and because I think the other thing that our society does is our society says oh well, you get to sleep in or you get to go to parties or you get to do all this, and that might be true. However, there's a certain point in life where being able to sleep in and go to parties or you get to do all this, and that might be true. However, there's a certain point in life where being able to sleep in and go to parties and that sort of stuff, it's not fulfilling. It doesn't fulfill you for a lifetime, right?

Fiona Kane:

So I think we just tell lots and we also tell, we emphasize so much about how hard it is having children, everything about so hard and it's so awful and so bad and blah, blah, blah and not having children so easy. And you know there's all these influences online kind of going on my life is easy, breezy, I don't have children. And you know, while all that might be true to an extent, it's not complete. It's not all. It's like I said, every, every situation has its negatives and positives, right? So having children when you're younger, or having children at all, has its negatives. Yeah, they make a mess. Everything's messy, your life's going to be messy for many years and you're going to have lack of sleep for many years and you're responsible for someone else and it can be really, really hard and it's all of the things that having children super hard, lots of things about super hard.

Fiona Kane:

I get that. All of the things that having children super hard, lots of things about super hard. I get that. It also is fulfilling. It gives you a sense of purpose, and children bring a lot of joy and bring a lot of love and bring a lot of wonderful things into the lives of their families and people around them.

Fiona Kane:

And so I just think that in our society, we choose to tell half of the story. We tell half of the story about having children oh it's all bad, and then half of the story about not having children it's all good. And I just think we should tell the full stories of both of those situations and then people can make decisions for themselves based on their situation and what they want to do. But telling half stories isn't helpful and as hard as having children is. I've not met many people, if any people, in my life not many people that would do it, would not want their children, would want it different, right they? You know what they've gained from having children is far greater than what they've lost from having children.

Fiona Kane:

So I just want to put some perspective there, a little bit of truth, a little bit of honesty, so that just to encourage especially younger women, younger people, to kind of think a little bit more about this fertility issue and whether or not it's something they can just put on the back burner till later, which you can choose to do that. But if you choose to do that, you are playing largely with fire because you know the older you get, the more likely it's not going to happen. So anyway, that's just something I felt, that a discussion. I felt that needed to happen and that hasn't really been happening in a really honest way, so I just wanted to add my bit there.

Fiona Kane:

I hope you found that useful, please, and I'd love to hear anyone if you have your experiences or your feedback, I'd love to hear that and please, you know, like, subscribe, share and rate and review the show. It really, really helps me. Hope you have a great week and you know, I know that this can be a challenging topic for people, so sorry if it's brought some things up for you, but I think this we need to have real conversations and, you know, putting, pretending that these issues don't exist doesn't help anyone, I don't think. Anyway, I hope you have a lovely week and I'll talk to you all again next week where we have real conversations about things that matter. Thanks, bye.

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