Why Women Shouldn’t Ignore Their Fertility Window

There is a disturbing trend that most people don’t like to mention in our increasingly politically correct culture, some even refer to it as the ‘F’ word.  The scary elephant hiding in the corner that doesn’t like to get mentioned in left leaning feminist circles is the word ‘Fertility’.

The reason it is so important to talk about is that fertility one of those things that has finite limits, even with all the medical technology available today.

When looking strictly at facts, a female reaches her fertility peak during her early to mid 20s, and fertility starts to nosedive at 35.

Jeanette Harris, from pro-life organisation Emily’s Voice, joined Neil Johnson on Vision Christian Radio’s 20Twenty program to talk about the issues surrounding a woman’s fertility window.

The conversation started with Jeanette sharing her own fertility struggles.  Jeanette was in her early 30s she and her husband decided to start having children.

“I was born in the early ‘70s and I was one of those children, coming out of the ‘50s and ‘60s revolution, where we were really encouraged in education, to reach for the sky and do whatever we could to get our career.  So that’s what I did.  I worked really hard in school, came out the other side with good grades, went off to university and my mind really wasn’t at all in the headspace for settling down.”

“I went about having my career and climbing the corporate ladder, completely unaware that your prime fertility window is during your twenties.  When I met my husband at 29, we thought we didn’t want to have children straight away, so we’ll keep going on our careers.  When we did decide to settle down and have children a couple of years later, it actually didn’t happen.”

“We just thought you’d start trying and boom, you would fall pregnant and that family plan would come about, but it didn’t.   It took us two years to conceive our first child.  And then it was five years with the second one and another two-and-a-half years with the next one.”

“Not only did we have a case with initial infertility, but we also had what they call secondary infertility as well which is a really hard thing to go through.”

So, with all the encouragement young women are given to pursue their dreams, why aren’t they being educated about their fertility window?

“At the moment we don’t know how to balance [career and fertility].  It’s almost like there is a fight going on in society.  If you talk about family, that means it’s against career.  If you talk about career, you can’t have career and family together.  It’s really messing with young women’s minds.”

“When it came to having a family, I could not figure out how I was going to juggle both things.  And at that point [in my thirties] it was that much harder.”

96% of abortions in Australia are for socio-economic reasons

Emily’s Voice is pro-life organisation and are very vocal about these societal pressures on women being a big factor in women choosing abortion over parenthood.

Of the 70,000 abortions that happen every year in Australia, 70% of women report that they didn’t want to have an abortion but felt pressured by society’s expectations for their lives, and the lack of support they would have been given if they'd had the baby.

With the average age of getting married in Australia now at 30 for women and 32 for men, how do we balance financial and lifestyle goals without missing the fertility window?

“The trouble is, your prime fertility window is during your twenties.  So, your body is saying, ‘create new life’ – that’s how we are designed to be.  But society is saying ‘go out and establish your career and save your money.'”

Women can have it all, just not at the same time.

“There’s a societal push for girls to get that career in, because they think they are going to miss out.  What I’ve found from having three children, is that you learn so much about human life - about family, how to influence, how to negotiate, how to associate through having a family that by the time you come back into the workforce, you have actually got so much more to give. And you haven’t lost out on that fertility window.”