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[treehugger1]

Yesterday was a momentous occasion here in the treehugger household -- we had sex w/o birth control for the first time in our twenty-one year marriage. Yipee!

But now, I'm feeling a like a worried teenage, like I should have actually seen a gynecologist first, to get the official "All clear! go ahead!" signal. Please, can someone tell me that there is absolutely no less than a gazillion-to-one chance that I'll get pregnant -- given that I:

1) Am 45
2) Have not had my period in over a year
3) Had been irregular for about 4 years before that.

OK? So am I free and clear? Or should I include an EPT on my shopping list?

[tuxedo_cat]

Get a test.  I recently discovered that women in their 40s have accidental pregnancy rates comparable to . . . teenaged girls!  

on edit:  and you'll notice that the thread right below this one is:  "You can get pregnant at 45"

[thenewyorker]

Get a test.  I recently discovered that women in their 40s have accidental pregnancy rates comparable to . . . teenaged girls!  

I posted on this recently so forgive me for those who read it.
When I moved to NY I had to go to Planned Parenthood until my insurance kicked in. I loved my Nurse Practitioner. She told me that the highest numbers of abortions at that location (after teenagers) were women over 45. They were all shocked that they could still get pregnant. These included women in their fifties who had not had a period for quite some time.
Good luck!

[macaroon]

Good luck, treehugger!

You really should go see is your GP and get a full physical.  Before getting pregnant, you should make sure that you don't have heart disease or type 2 diabetes, which occur more frequently as people get older.  If you do have heart disease (and I hope you don't), you run a risk of having a heart attack or stroke as a result of the increased demands on your heart from the pregnancy. 

[thenewyorker]

I read the post as treehugger not wanting to get pregnant? Now I am confused, which is a common state in these past two months of post-pregnancy.
He started to coo the other day. :)

But if I was wrong, then I second macaroon's post.. Gestational diabetes is a b!tch.

[inthelab]

Yesterday was a momentous occasion here in the treehugger household -- we had sex w/o birth control for the first time in our twenty-one year marriage. Yipee!

But now, I'm feeling a like a worried teenage, like I should have actually seen a gynecologist first, to get the official "All clear! go ahead!" signal. Please, can someone tell me that there is absolutely no less than a gazillion-to-one chance that I'll get pregnant -- given that I:

1) Am 45
2) Have not had my period in over a year
3) Had been irregular for about 4 years before that.

OK? So am I free and clear? Or should I include an EPT on my shopping list?

You can still get pregnant.  Get your hormone levels done.

[lemonbar]

Speaking for those of us who did manage to get pregnant at 45, I would say you should be careful. That is, if you absolutely don't want to get pregnant. Even though you have not had your period for a year, it seems early for menopause. Have you seen your gyn about the lack of period? Has he or she diagnosed you as being in menopause officially? I know that the traditional definition of menopause is not having a period for a year, but 45 seems early. I guess I would err on the side of caution, especially if I was sure I did not want to have more children.

Being irregular does not prevent you from getting pregnant. My cycles have been irregular since I gave birth to my son almost two years ago. I still got them, but some would be 20 days; others 40. I had mid-cycle bleeding, too. So we weren't using birth control either, because I thought there was just no way I'd ever get pregnant again with my cycles they way they were, my age, and the fact that I had to go through infertility treatments to have my son. WRONG!

I believe the chance for women getting pregnant at 45 is less than 1%. And, a lot of women who are 45 or older are not using birth control (the statistic I saw was about half the women between the ages of 45-49 are not doing so). So you are not alone! However, as a previous poster pointed out, abortion rates in this age group are also high because women think they can't get pregnant, don't use birth control, and then face an unexpected pregnancy.

I doubt I'd worry if I only had unprotected sex once. But, if I were you, I wouldn't make a habit out of it until I'd gone to the gyn and got the all-clear.

[macaroon]

I read the post as treehugger not wanting to get pregnant? Now I am confused, which is a common state in these past two months of post-pregnancy.
He started to coo the other day. :)

But if I was wrong, then I second macaroon's post.. Gestational diabetes is a b!tch.

Well, non-gestational diabetes is a bit worse.  If a woman has diabetes during her first trimester, when organs are forming, the baby can have serious birth defects.  

[biomancer]

Treehugger, if you don't want to get pregnant, I strongly advise using some form of birth control.  My grandmother was 45 and 5 years "post-menopause" when she got pregnant with my mom, and my great-grandmother kept having kids until sometime in her late 50s (18 kids all told, the last a set of twins).

[lemonbar]

I should also point out that the last time I got my FSH tested (about a year ago), it was 28! It was about 12 when I conceived my son two and a half years ago, with difficulty. Get your hormonal levels checked (your gyn should do this in order to determine if you are truly in menopause), but they obviously don't tell the whole story.

[treehugger1]

Get a test.  I recently discovered that women in their 40s have accidental pregnancy rates comparable to . . . teenaged girls!  

Yeah, I just found this tidbit of good news (not!) on the web too.

I read the post as treehugger not wanting to get pregnant?

That's right. I don't want to. In fact, I find it hard to describe exactly how much I do not want to get pregnant. I must be a rarety among women, but I've never had the slightest desire to have (or adopt children). And now at 45, even less so.

OTOH, having an abortion is not something I want to consider either (for a number of reasons).

Yesterday was a momentous occasion here in the treehugger household -- we had sex w/o birth control for the first time in our twenty-one year marriage. Yipee!

But now, I'm feeling a like a worried teenage, like I should have actually seen a gynecologist first, to get the official "All clear! go ahead!" signal. Please, can someone tell me that there is absolutely no less than a gazillion-to-one chance that I'll get pregnant -- given that I:

1) Am 45
2) Have not had my period in over a year
3) Had been irregular for about 4 years before that.

OK? So am I free and clear? Or should I include an EPT on my shopping list?

You can still get pregnant.  Get your hormone levels done.

But don't hormone levels fluctuate? Is there any way my gynecologist can really know for sure that I'll *never* ovulate again, that I have no eggs left in my ovaries? Wouldn't they just confirm what I already know -- that pregnancy would be (highly) unlikely?

[gennimom]

Considering how many thousands of eggs are in the ovaries and only a small fraction of them are ever released through ovulation, your ovaries will never be empty of eggs. Menopause is just when they are supposed to be non-functional. But as others have pointed out, there is non-functional and "non-functional."

[lemonbar]

FSH levels fluctuate throughout your cycle. That is why they test you at the same point in your cycle (on day three, if I remember correctly), every cycle, if you are going through infertility treatments. Then, they use the highest number they see to gauge your ability to get pregnant. For example, if on cycle one, you get a result of 12 but on cycle two, you get a result of 28 -- they will take 28 as your typical FSH level. This is because other hormones (like LH) can depress FSH on any given cycle and make it look lower than it really is.

There is no test that can definitively tell you how many eggs you have left. The best they can do is test FSH and, if it's really high, tell you that this typically means your reserve is very low and your egg quality is very poor. Most infertility doctors have an FSH "cut-off" point after which they will refuse to treat a woman. My doctor would not treat a woman if her FSH was higher than 16.

The point is that none of the tests is definitive, but they can give you a clearer picture of your fertility than you have now. In the end, though, I don't know that any doctor is going to tell you you absolutely, positively, cannot get pregnant, especially at age 45. Given that you've not had a period in a year, and you are 45, they may say it's highly unlikely. I don't know that you'll get anything more definitive than that. Still, if I were you, I'd want to confer with a doctor on what they thought my chances of getting pregnant were, especially since you say that you absolutely do not want children. I'd want to know why I had not had a period in a year.  

[prytania3]

I stopped using b/c at 40. At that particular time, I was seeing someone who would have been thrilled had I gotten pregnant, so I wasn't too concerned; however, I didn't. I don't believe the rate for women in their 40s is comparable to teenage girls. That sounds like a lot of bunk to me. My son was planned, and I got pregnant in about 6 weeks in my early 30s.

I know Lemonbar had a surprise, but I think that's more the exception than the rule.

[notaprof]

I have been waking up nauseous for a week and yesterday I had an OMG moment when I thought to myself, this is just like when I was pregnant.  Then I remembered, not only did I have my tubes tied many years back, but I also had a hysterectomy.  I think I can rest easy in that department.  I have to say, that I liked that side effect of that operation, no more birth control worries.

And if you don't want to get pregnant at 45, just take Bristol Palin's advice - abstinence.  Yeah, that will work.