Keepsake pouch for your positive pregnancy test: awesome or icky?

Hmm. According to e.p.t. (you know, the makers of those preggo tests) one of the 'most beautiful' moments in a woman's life 'occurs in the bathroom'. In a survey commissioned by the company, 67% of women said that they kept their positive pregnancy test and many women expressed the desire to have a keepsake pouch to store it in for all of eternity.

My question to you: Did you save your pregnancy test?

Click here to record your response

Moral panic Monday!

Oh yes, I love a good cautionary tale.

Once again, young women are being urged to procreate hot on the heels of the Relationships Australia survey that claims three-quarters of generation X (aged 30-39) and Y (18-29) women plan to have children, but only 16 per cent are thinking about having them now. Is it me or does this same moral panic about fertility creep up about every six months? I wrote a bit of a manifesto back in January of this year.

Is it any coincidence that a survey like this, essentially asking women to give up their career aspirations and dreams of a few good years of independence to throw it all in just to have babies at 22?

I think not.

As we approach the mother of all rallys in Canberra this week (yeah, homebirthing!) and all of this current fuss about popping out children, I've been thinking about where feminism fits in the puzzle.

In spite of hard-won changes to Australian women’s legal and political status over the last 30 years, anxieties about pregnancy and motherhood clearly continue to brew in popular culture. Ways of combining motherhood with other feminist aspirations are rarely discussed in the current Australian political climate but become particularly visible when it comes to actually having babies and the way that you have them. Sure, this stupid Relationships Australia survey can somewhat irresponsibly encourage younger women to have babies in theory but in reality, WHERE IS ALL OF THE NECESSARY INFRASTRUCTURE TO SUPPORT MOTHERS?! I mean come on, Australia is still lost in the woods when it comes to paid maternity leave, the maternity system itself is barely surviving and it is now almost impossible to get you kid into childcare within spitting distance of your house. So, I ask you, Relationship Australia, how do you expect young women to be mothers if we continue to live in a culture where motherhood is not valued? What makes me even more insane with rage is that instead of blaming the bloody government for not fulfilling it's obligation to support women as mothers, women often end up blaming 'feminism' (like she was a person) for failing to live up to it's promise that it's easy to 'have it all'. I tend to think that all of this moral panic about fertility may point to a ‘backlash’ against feminism(s) both by the Australian government and women themselves. The government absolves itself by telling women that they are getting to independent and they should be 'good' women and stay at home and have more babies and women complain to each other that climbing the corporate ladder is impossible with 2 kids and a lazy husband.

ARGH.

Get paid for getting laid

First there were honeymoons. Then we had the babymoons. Now, we have the procreation vacation.

So, if you're planning to get a bun in the oven, why not get your baby jive on at an island resort?

Why? Because the Westin in Aruba is offering couples a $300 CONCEPTION CREDIT if they get pregnant while staying at the hotel between 1 Sept-19 Dec.

Let's hope the hotel is vigilant when it comes to changing the sheets.

P.S. Have you noticed the new bling on the blog? I'm a Top Health Blogger for Wellsphere.com!

Pregnancy in 12 months or your money back

Sometimes when I read about products related to pregnancy or fertility (after picking my jaw up from the floor) I seriously fear for the future.

Cambridge Temperature Concepts, a British manufacturer, is now offering women a MONEY-BACK GUARANTEE if their new product, Duo Fertility, (£495) does not result in a pregnancy after 12 months.

That's right. If you don't get knocked up, you get your money back.

So what is Duo Fertility? Well! Just when you thought conception couldn't get any more un-sexy or more complication, this 'intelligent' fertility monitor measures your basal body temperature with such accuracy it can predict your ovulation up to six days in advance. According to the manufacturer:

"The sensor automatically measures and records your skin temperature, taking approximately 20,000 temperature measurements while you sleep (compared to just one measurement per day by most competing products). This allows easy detection of the upward shift in basal body temperature which is associated with ovulation."

Um, sounds comfortable. But here's the kicker:

"Data is transferred from the sensor to the DuoFertility reader wirelessly. You will then be able to see a simple display of your fertility status over the next six days on your reader, giving you plenty of time to plan a romantic evening in! You can consult the reader at your convenience - there is no need to have it with you all the time, and you don't have to use it at any particular time of the day or week."

Now, I know for couples dealing with infertility, planning and monitoring fertility is a part of daily life that most people don't even think about. BUT it REALLY ANNOYS ME that the manufacturer is GUARANTEEING a pregnancy. On the surface this totally implausible offer has the potential to lead many women, already suffering debilitating anxiety over their inability to become pregnant, to believe that if they simply monitor their fertility with this device they will magically become pregnant. If you actually read the fine print in the terms and conditions of the offer it says:

"There may be medical reasons (such as lack of ovulation) which will prevent our Products from assisting you becoming pregnant, but with which the product may assist in diagnosis."

What annoys me even more is that the company sells the product with the added bonus of free, ongoing consultation with fertility specialists. In reality, the company totally absolves themselves of responsibility:

"The consultancy services are for information purposes only, and are not a substitute for professional medical advice. Please contact your doctor before using any Product(s), particularly if you are already under medical care. Always check with your doctor if you have any concerns about your condition or treatment. We are not responsible or liable, directly or indirectly for any form of damages whatsoever resulting from the use, misuse or reliance on information contained in or implied by the information provided to you during such consultancy."

What about the psychological trauma that results from using a device with the hope that you will get pregnant and then potentially ending up with no baby after 12 months of use?

ANNOYING.

Moral panic Monday: Britain's 'oldest mum' at 66

In case you missed it, everyone in the world seems to have their knickers in a knot over the pregnancy of Elizabeth Adeney, 66, now claiming the dubious honour of Britain's 'oldest mum'. Following on from many years of failed IVF attempts, Adeney fell pregnant after treatment at a Ukrainian fertility clinic. Most UK doctors refuse treatment to women of her age and also it is much cheaper to go elsewhere for IVF. Nevertheless, whether you agree with her decision or not, it is hard to deny that this poor woman is being unfairly castigated for choosing to become a mother at what is considered to be a socially inappropriate age. While on some level, I tend to agree that being nearly 67 when you have a newborn is morally ambiguous when you think about whether you will be around long enough to see the child into their teen years, at the same time I am appalled by the personal attacks on this woman's character, her ability to raise a healthy child and her position as a 'divorcee' in recent days. Has anyone forgotten about all of the famous men in their late 60s who have fathered children, receiving only pats on the back and knowing winks by other men for partnering with a woman nearly half their age?

Case in point: talk show host, Larry King. King, who became a father for the fifth time at the age of 65 in 1999 received only praise for having a 39year old (7th) wife and a baby on the way. Last year at the age of 73, he was praised for being a 'better father' to his two young sons, aged 7 and 8 in Ok!:

"Larry King enjoys being a dad at the ripe old age of 73. He loves to take his young sons, Chance, 8, and Cannon, 7, to Dodger games, which is something his older sons, aged 47 and 40, didn’t enjoy enough. “I’m a better father this time,” he tells intern Brandi Tape at The Quaker Smart Heart Café breakfast. “I have more time to spend with them, and I guess I care more.”

Argh. This makes me so angry. With regard to Adeney, who is expected to give birth by caesarean next week, one fertility doctor has said:

"I do not treat women older than 63,' he said. 'I don't want the child to be left without a mother before they reach 20."

If any of you saw Today this morning in Australia, Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt (whom I hate, by the way) had the nerve to say that Adeney was an unfit mother because she was divorced and because she was not providing the child with a father figure. This woman is the manager of a factory and earns a decent living.

I think the issues are being confused. Whether Elizabeth Adeney can be a 'good' mother is completely separate to whether it is appropriate for women over 65 to be able to access IVF. Older men seem to be able to get away with fatherhood late in life with no concern over the very real prospect that some of these men will not be alive to see their children finish high school. Women, on the other hand, are seen as 'past their use by date' once they reach a certain age and I think the threat of an 'older', 'single' and clearly financially secure woman choosing to have a child is what is really at the core of this moral panic about IVF.

A response to the latest cog in the First Reponse fertility machine

As if women needed another reminder that fertility is kind of like a loaf of bread: if you leave it too long it all goes a bit mouldy and horrible.

Welcome to the latest in pharmaceutical fertility propaganda. First Response, the queen of pregnancy testing in the US and abroad, has just released the Easy Read Ovulation Kit

The purpose of the kit, according to the manufacturer is that it allows you to 'get pregnant sooner' by detecting your LH (luteinising hormone) surges or when you are ovulating. According to First Response, the new product now completes an entire 'system' devoted to reproduction. The new print ads feature all three First Response products, asking “Am I ...” followed by “fertile?” “ovulating?” and “pregnant?” to highlight each test.

Kim Hahn of Conceive magazine said, "They’re going to help a category that is underserved and increase the dialogue about reproduction and women’s fertility health". I totally disagree. This is just another reminder that women should be taking notice of their fertility and if they don't they will start to 'dry up' and only reinforce the idea that if women remain childless they are less valued as women.

On the other hand, as Karen Hammond, a gynecologist, told the NYT, the new test is not an unequivocal indication of fertility. "“If somebody 37 or older has their F.S.H. test come back normal, they’re still their age,” Ms. Hammond said. “It bothers me a bit that these older women might get a false sense of security by getting a normal reading and they’d put off their childbearing because they have a false sense of security.”

Hmm. This is pretty horrible too. False sense of secturity. In essence, she is reinforcing the same horrible claim about being fit enough for motherhood but couched in medical language. It's sort of like she's saying that 'older' women get lulled into thinking that pregnancy is always possible and then SNAP! one day your ovaries become completely useless. In fact, the packaging on the test actually says, “Are You Able to Get Pregnant?*” with an asterisk leading to miniscule type stating that the product will not really answer that question: “This test detects F.S.H. This test does not detect all fertility issues.”

Seriously, how is that supposed to make a woman feel? Are you able to get pregnant? Well, what if the answer is no. First Reponse wants to make sure that women have all of their fertility answers, yet, their own disclaimer tells women directly that the test isn't really a sure thing. What about a male fertility test? Why is it that the viability of sperm seems to be totally left out of the fertility equation? Why aren't more men running out to the chemist to test the quality of their sperm?

Surrogacy rising among military wives

Octo Mum admits 14 children is a bit much

Mother of 14 children, Nadya Suleman told Dr. Phil yesterday that her fertility treatments were irrational:

"At the time, I was just justifying my actions based on saying, 'Well, these are my children, they are extremely valuable -- their lives,' which is true, but I was not placing that above my others," Suleman said after Dr. Phil pressed for an explanation for why she decided to do in vitro fertilization to get pregnant after already having six children at home. "But my heart was in it. Not my head. I wasn't thinking rationally. In retrospect, would I have done that again? I don't know.

"It wasn't a realistic thing to do. It was irrational at the time, looking back. But then I was really reluctant to state that, because I don't want people to think, 'Well, you don't want the babies, you don't love them.'"

YA THINK?!

Source: Octo Mom Fertility Treatments

Octuplets mum raises vexing questions

I've avoided talking about the octuplets mum..until now. For those of you who have been outside the realm of the mass media, a California woman has given birth to octuplets by caesarean section. It has been revealed, however, that this woman has six children already. Having conceived through IVF, when given the option to selectively abort some of the implanted embryos, she chose to keep all of them. I won't get into the ethics of this on the part of the doctor as this has been written about extensively elsewhere. I find two things very interesting.

1) I wrote about infertility the other day and how the pressure for women in their 20s to start thinking about their ticking biological clocks is a precedent established historically by the new 'empowerment' brought to women in a post-feminist world. I noted that as soon as certain groups of women gain power in the public sphere, institutional powers-that-be remind women of their 'duties' as wives and mothers and all of these moral panics about fertility start to emerge. Ironically, the next day, we hear about the octuplets mum and her growing brood of 14 children. If this women, is clearly, if not a little overzealously, fulfilling her procreative 'duty', why is it that the many commentators have gone to great lengths to establish this woman's insanity? It seems that fertility is only desirable when you are a 'good' woman or a desirable candidate for motherhood.

2) Although the octuplets mum has wanted to remain nameless, according to The Australian today, the unemployed woman is seeking $2 million from commercial sponsorship and media interviews in order to defray the costs of her children. She apparently has Oprah and Diane Sawyer on board for interviews.

What do we think? Would the picture be different if the octuplets mum was 38, happily married and employed?

Source: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24993121-2703,00.html

Nip and tuck and IVF?

Porn star Jenna Jameson is pregnant with twins. Seriously, what is the deal with multiples lately? Is all of Hollywood having fertility treatments? All of the twin pregnancies comes hot on the heels of new warnings from the British government about fertility tourism. Many British women are traveling overseas to receive fertility treatment and coming back with twin and triplet pregnancies. This, according to the British government, is costing the NHS because of higher costs associated with multiple pregnancies. Overseas clinics are apparently more inclined to transfer more embryos into the womb, whereas British clinics tend to only do one at a time because of the medical risks. The treatment is also considerably cheaper overseas. Australia has even jumped on the fertility tourism bandwagon. The Cairns Fertility Centre will open next year with a 5-star resort attached to the clinic. The director describes the centre as a "one-stop-shop" for conceiving couples looking for a bit of relaxation. In addition to the medical facilities, the 12-storey building would include luxury hotel apartments serviced by a swimming pool, gym, spa, barbeque area and restaurants. Beauty therapists will be on board as well as cosmetic surgeons. Apparently, the clinic will be the largest in the world. Women can have a nip/tuck while they also have IVF.

We have seen the future and it is not good.

Sources: http://tinyurl.com/4cumzr
http://tinyurl.com/3tpnwy
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSS1735973220080917

Pucker baby number 3

Jools Oliver, wife of British chef, Jamie Oliver, has announced she is pregnant with their third child. The former model has openly discussed the couple's fertility issues and she was contemplating fertility treatments as it was taking so long to fall pregnant for the third time around. She is due in April. Jamie is dying for a boy.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/4gqb5j

Pregnancy brain

Headline (3 March): Babies can cause 'momnesia'

Headline (today): Pregnancy makes women quicker, smarter

Interesting. The subject of 'pregnancy brain' annoys me to no end. I have no doubt that pregnant women change their priorities in preparation for motherhood; recent research has shown that fluctuations in hormones affect the ways in which pregnant women think as they change their focus from themselves to their babies. Hanging out the washing or remembering a friend's birthday can drop down on the list of priorities as thinking about birth starts to eclipse the things that would have once been important.

Nevertheless, 'pregnancy brain' only further pathologises pregnancy as a condition to managed. Similar to representations of women as chaotic and irrational during menstruation or menopause, the suggestion that women similarly 'lose it' as they become mothers more deeply entrenches negative cultural stereotypes about women and their reproductive bodies.

However, today new research supposedly suggests that pregnancy makes women 'smarter'. Whereas hormones are pregnant women's downfall in earlier reports, this latest report suggests a reservoir of hormones released during pregnancy enacts permanent brain change. Basically, alot of estrogen makes women better mothers; they become more visually aware and perhaps unsurprisingly, strengthens their survival instinct. However, here is the kicker. This new research is based on rats...

Okay, maybe I'm missing something here but pregnant women are not rats. Therefore, I find it pretty ridiculous that a legitimate research group could even conceive of making such a huge scientific leap. Not only are the brains of humans and rats significantly different, the scientists only use unnamed 'observational studies' as evidence to confirm the same reaction in new mothers. The authors of the study argue that if they can replicate this hormone reaction in 'older' women, perhaps they can 'treat' menopause (again, like it's a disease).

Sources: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23402325-5005961,00.html
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-03-03-momnesia_N.htm

Silicon womb more 'natural' than your own

"LONDON: A team of UK researchers will soon be conducting trials of a "silicon womb" inserted into a woman's own womb which incubates embryos to provide a more natural environment"

Right. I am clearly confused as to how a SILICON womb can prove to be MORE NATURAL than a womb inside a woman's body that is NOT SILICON.

Essentially, because scientists think that women's reproductive systems are too complicated and unpredictable it is better to implant embryos in a silicon capsule for women undergoing IVF because the embryos will survive better. It takes the 'guesswork' out of IVF.

Damn us women and our crazy fallopian tubes.

Pregnancies are supposed to be biologically precious. Evolution has made us work that way for a reason.

*Sigh*

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Silicon_womb_for_better_embryos/articleshow/2824683.cms

When a sonogram is nothing to celebrate

Everywhere you look, fertility is fed to women on a slow drip from the time we are old enough to actually know what it means. Babies smile at us on TV to sell visions of idyllic family life. Pregnancy is used as a 40 week joy ride into the birth canals of celebrity women we don't really know personally, but 'know' where they bought their last latte, who their gynecologist is and when they have scheduled an elective caesar. 3D ultrasounds are marketed as baby's 'first photo' and as the first step to motherhood. The point is that being a parent is a not only marked as the most formative experience in any individual life, it is a market that never dries up for big companies. As much as we love to rhaposodise on the joys of parenting, we often forget that fertility is a privilege and not a given. Sure Hallmark is happy to sell 'It's a Girl' greeting cards, but 'My Uterus is Empty' cards are nowhere to be found. Celebrities are happy to blab to the media about how much money they have spent on the nursery but no one ever wants to reveal how much money they invested in IVF.

Here is a thought-provoking article from the New York Times about one woman's experience of 'failed' fertility:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/06/fashion/06love.html?ref=fashion

Lesbians deserve to be mothers

VICTORIA is to make surrogacy available to infertile couples and ease restrictions on access to fertility treatment for lesbians and single women.

Looks like the shift in Australian government is making way for sweeping changes in state government as well. Lesbians will no longer have to be declared 'infertile' and drive across state borders in order to access IVF. Questions still remain as to whether gay couples will be able to adopt children but this is a huge step in Victorian health policy and a clear admission that gay women deserve to be mothers too.

Source: http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/state-overhauls-baby-laws/2007/12/14/1197568264930.html

Older mums a 'risky' trend: a problem of biology or society?

Seriously (how many posts have I started with a *sigh* and a 'seriously' lately?) why do American obstetricians make it so difficult for women to be pregnant and give birth safely these days?

Women who are 'young' (in teens/20s) are consistently represented as welfare queens and 'bad' mothers. Celebrities are increasingly the only representation of motherhood accessible to everyday women in popular culture. And now, as always, 'older' mothers are copping flak for selfishly wanting to fall pregnant and actual give birth vaginally when they are over 40. I find this particular issue incredibly disturbing. According to the Los Angeles Times, pregnancies to women over 40 has increased threefold in California as a result of middle-class women's access to fertility treatments. In the words of one fertility specialist:

"Women begin to have fertility problems about 10 to 15 years before they experience menopause, Rodi said. The average age of menopause is 50 to 52, but it can range from 40 to 60. Women have no way of knowing for sure at what point in the spectrum they'll fall"

I'm not denying the statistical risks associated with later childbearing. A range of studies have shown that certain complications are more likely to arise when women give birth later in life. However, I find it particularly offensive that all of these articles being fired off in the media about 'older' mothers are generally not related to the welfare or well-being of 'older' mothers pre and postnatally. Rather, these articles position women over 40 as taking a gamble on bodies that, according to biomedicine, are no longer reproductively valuable. The whole industry (and yes, it is an industry) of infertility is reliant upon women who are told that as soon as they hit the age of 35, the egg factory will be invariably shutting up shop. As the quote above suggests, women must be aware of their fertility from the moment they begin to menstruate and are encouraged to have children early in life so as to circumvent any unforeseen 'problems' later on, as a sort of reproductive 'insurance' policy. The overriding message is that if you wait too long, you can find yourself with a 'barren womb' and it is nobody's fault but your own.

I think it's interesting that nowhere in the LA Times article does anyone specifically address (as I have said many times before) the specific cultural/economic/historical shifts that have provided women with positive opportunities to be active in the public, to have fulfilling careers and to not be resigned to the domestic if they don't want to be. As I have found in my own research with pregnant women over 40, these women have spent half of their lifetimes establishing their own identities, independence and a career. By the time they are 40, having a child seems right despite the associated 'risks'. Why fault women for finally making themselves happy? I thought we had evolved past the women-as-baby-making-machines metaphor that has so deeply embedded itself in American biomedical directives. In fact, the reason why women are 'waiting' so much longer as the media suggests is implicitly tied to working. New Canadian research shows women over 40 are often more likely to forego maternity leave because they have made huge investments in their professional lives; many of these women do not even take the majority of the materity leave to which they are entitled because they are so fearful of the real consequences of taking time off and losing a corporate edge.

Adrienne ten Cate, a senior researcher with Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, has found that the more educated, well-compensated and high-ranking the woman, the less maternity leave she takes. "There's a U-curve, where women in low-level positions can't afford to take time off," she says, "and women at the high end return early for fear of forgoing promotions, wage increases and other opportunities."

Perhaps if the culture of working changed and women were not at the nexus of the work/life balance, delayed childbearing would not be such an issue. The truth is most workplaces are still extremely unsupportive of motherhood and women have to constantly negotiate the demands of motherhood and working without an infrastructure for support. Billable hours, long working days and women performing 'like men' are staid features of the American workplace.

Sources: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-oldmoms3dec03,0,6600732.story?coll=la-home-local
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-banks4dec04,1,4364409.column?coll=la-util-news-local&ctrack=1&cset=true
http://www.financialpost.com/magazine/story.html?id=130063

First Response 'rapid' pregnancy test: what is the point?

I saw an ad for First Reponse's new 'Early Result' Pregnancy Test the other day on TV. I was intrigued. According to the ad, you can find out if you are pregnant '5 days earlier' than you normally would (i.e. before you are due to have your period). So, intrigued as I was, I decided to go to the manufacturer's website to find out how this test really works. The early detection test is more sensitive to pregnancy hormones in your urine than 'normal' pregnancy test (and most women have enough of the pregnancy hormones at least 4 days before their period is due). However, and this is why I think the 'early detection is totally futile', in the instruction manual online in a section about how to read the results, the manufacturer says this if the result is 'negative':

"You may not be pregnant, or it may be too early to tell. If you do not get your period within 7 days, you should retest with another FIRST RESPONSE® Early Result Pregnancy Test. It is possible that you miscalculated the length of your cycle or your urine may not have had enough pregnancy hormone for the FIRST RESPONSE® Test to give a positive result. If you retest and again no hCG is found, and your period still has not started, you should call your doctor."

Okay. So what is the point of spending money on an 'early detection' test if, logically, there is a good chance it is too early to tell if you are pregnant and you have to spend more money to test at a later time? How is knowing that your pregnant 4-5 days earlier in the month going to change anything?

Just another way to get women to spend more money on products they don't really need. And you know what else really annoys me? First Response also sells ovulation kits so women can test when they are ovulating 'to increase your chance of becoming pregnant'. However, why is it that the onus is always on women to spend money on fertility (and even more on infertility)? Why are women always induced to monitor fertility when 40% of the time infertility is attributed to the male? Where are the over-the-counter sperm tests?

Source: http://www.firstresponse.com/products/earlyResultInsert.asp#WhenToUse

More statistics that piss me off.

Apparently, the most fertile women in Australia are women in their 30s according to reports in The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. In particular, women between 30-34 are fuelling the 'baby boom' bringing Australia's fertility rate to its highest level in 12 years.

This is not the statistic that pisses me off. In fact, this comes as no surprise to me personally considering the bulk of the women in my study are between the ages of 30-34 and a good number of my cohort are older than that, between 37-40. This can be attributed to a number of positive social changes: 1) more women are educated 2) more women are waiting to get married or enter a long-term partnership 3) more women are employed in the paid sector 4) women can 'control' (for want of a better word) fertility more easily

This statistic really pisses me off:

"...Victorian women are real laggers in the younger ages and there has been a substantial fall in fertility rates among 20-year-olds over the last five years," Dr Birrell [a demographer] said.

Isn't that a good thing? For once, certain women feel confident enough be positively selfish and put themselves before motherhood; to establish a career, become financially stable, gain life experience. And yet, now people want to complain that 20 year olds are not having babies any more?

Has anyone been reading the British newspapers? Teen pregnancy is the new black of moral panics. They are sucking off the welfare system. They are irresponsible. They are 'bad' mothers. Young pregnant women have never been well-received. In fact, wasn't it the 'young mothers' of Australia who were blamed for selfishly getting pregnant only to receive the Baby Bonus? And now people are complaining that 20 year olds aren't getting pregnant fast enough? Instead of positioning the growth of 'older' mothers as a great thing, the tables are turned against women for wanting to be better human beings in waiting to have children.

This is the kicker:

"Fertility Society of Australia spokeswoman Anne Clark warned that the decision to defer motherhood could have serious implications for national population growth: "This is not good news, because fertility levels change for women in their mid-30s and for men after 40, so you are going to have a lot of people pushing it to have more than two children."

Seriously, the boring adage that women's reproductive capacities completely deteriorate at 35 is so ridiculous and only reinforces the nature/culture binary which has plagued the representation of women's bodies in medicine for the last century. If women's bodies are positioned as unruly and chaotic, it is so much easier to justify that the minute a woman is 'old' she is no longer useful and this become a perfect means of social control. It's like 'Have a baby before 35 or else you will dry up, like the useless vessel that you are'.

I don't think any woman over 35 is not blinded by the cultural 'ticking' of her 'biological clock' . But if it means that more women can have full lives by waiting to become mothers (especially young women) then that seems like a great trade off to me. IVF has not become a default mechanism for late parenthood. IVF is so expensive it is definitely not as popular or easily accessible as the media would like us to believe. Women are not selfishly waiting to become mothers to screw over the nation; they are selfishly choosing to put themselves first, a rarity indeed.

Sources: http://www.smh.com.au/news/parenting/baby-boom-for-thirtysomethings/2007/10/29/1193618837109.html
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/median-age-for-mums-now-308/2007/10/29/1193618797586.html