How late is too late for kids?

GROWING TREND: Nearly 27,000 babies were born to women over 40 in England and Wales last year.

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As more women over 40 give birth, MARGARETTE DRISCOLL meets a mother who says age isn't what it used to be.

Susan Tollefsen and Nick Mayer have just returned from a relaxing sunny holiday in Crete. While their two-year- old daughter Freya played around their feet, the couple's talk turned to whether they should have another child. "Freya's brought such infinite joy into our lives we would love to try again. We are still thinking about it, but I know we have to get a move on," Tollefsen says.

Indeed they do: if she were to get pregnant now she would be 60 when the baby was born and 60, she says, is her personal cut-off point, "though I would never put anyone off having a child".

Tollefsen, from Laindon, Essex, is at the extreme end of what is becoming an established trend. Figures from the Office for National Statistics last month showed that although the birth rate in England and Wales has dipped, one group is experiencing a baby boom: women over 40. Some 26,976 children were born to mothers over the age of 40 last year, almost three times as many as were recorded in 1989 and twice as many as in 1999. Among women aged 35-39 there were 114,288 births, a 41 per cent rise on 1999.

The trend to delay having children has been well documented among the Sex and the City generation, who sought to establish careers before daring to take maternity leave. But working for 10 years and having a baby in your early 30s is quite a different proposition from being 40-plus.

"It suggests there are a number of factors involved," says Tollefsen. "In the old days you could leave uni at 21 and have a baby at 25. Now you're lucky if you're starting to pay off your student debt at that age. Anyone who really thinks about what having a baby entails wants a settled income and a stable home. It might take until you are 40 to get that established. But if people are making sure babies are wanted and loved and that they can provide for them, that's a good thing.

"And it may simply be that people are changing: 40, 50, 60 aren't what they used to be. When I was a child, someone of 60 was considered old. And the simple fact is that you can have a baby later now. Even after the menopause, the menstrual cycle can be recreated. And if you want a child and pass the protocols, why not?"

Getting pregnant at 57 wasn't a lifestyle choice for Tollefsen, a former special needs teacher, but more an accident of tragic circumstance. When she was 34, her father was found to have advanced liver cancer and died shortly afterwards.

"When he was diagnosed, he said, 'How will Mum cope?' and I took his hand and assured him I'd look after her. When you make these promises you don't know what you're doing really. It was the time when I should have been out looking for Mr Right and having babies but that didn't seem as important as fulfilling my promise. By the time Mum died I was nearly 51."

She had by then met Mayer, who is 11 years younger. On a holiday in Malaysia a little girl caught their attention and Mayer said how much he would love a child. The quest began. First they explored adoption but were offered only older children with special needs "and that was what I did for work".

IVF in Britain was out - Tollefsen was over 50. But as they looked into adopting from abroad, Mayer read an article about older women being treated by clinics in Russia, Poland and Turkey. Tollefsen was accepted by a Russian clinic, where she was treated using donor eggs. The first two cycles of IVF failed and the third appeared to end in miscarriage. "All my hopes dipped. That was it," she says.

But a few months later, with a swelling stomach and suspected ovarian cancer, she was given a scan - and found she was 29 weeks pregnant. "It was the most wonderful, wonderful shock. Nick and I were like raving lunatics, so happy and dashing from place to place trying to get together everything we needed. The next thing I knew I was being wheeled down for the caesarean."

Freya's birth - inevitably - raised eyebrows. "People say, 'You'll only have 20 years with her', and obviously I don't want 20 years, I want the lot. I want to see her children and their children, but I know that won't be possible.

"People can criticise but if they saw us as a family they would know Freya has the most loving home imaginable and I don't expect anyone, least of all my daughter, to look after me in my old age.

"I was ecstatic when she was born and the euphoria has never really worn off. When she looks up and says 'Mummy, Mummy', I'm so moved by it. I think one of the things you bring to a child as a late parent is a simple sense of how lucky you are. If more women are waiting and really appreciating a child as something special in their lives that can only be a good thing."

Some doctors seem to agree: when she made a television documentary last year about the possibility of older women being treated in Britain, the London Women's Clinic - which usually does not treat those over 50 - said it would accept her. It revised its policy because Tollefsen had had a successful later birth. If she were to have another, with all treatment in London, it would open the way for other over-fifties.

"Women who are much older have given birth in Italy and India and the local community has turned out to celebrate," she says. "They see a new life as a gift and that's what we should do - whenever a baby arrives." 

- The Sunday Times

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