Aniston’s comment that she’s in no rush to get pregnant or have a baby is curious.
If she doesn’t want kids, no-one sane would apply any pressure to make her try! If she wants to adopt, then as a rich actress she has more options than ‘ordinary’ people and a longer timeline in which to organise an adoption.
But Aniston has said in the past that she would like to have a baby. In which case, it’s pretty strange for her not to acknowledge that, at 42, a woman – like it or not – has got to rush if she’s not to see the intransigent window of fertility shut firmly against her. While Justin Theroux will probably be able to father kids in his mid-forties and later, Aniston most probably won’t be able to conceive at the same age. There’s absolutely no much point pretending female fertility has the long duration that male fertility has.
The world has grown used to stories about aging celebrities getting pregnant, giving birth and/or adopting in their 40s. Most of the women at the higher end of the age scale – mid to late 40s – are using surrogates and/or other women’s eggs. Female eggs after 40 are far harder to fertilise than younger eggs and pregnancies are far more prone to end in miscarriage. Yet the trend for rich older women to give birth or adopt children has created a general perception that female fertility lasts longer than, in reality, it does.
It’s possible that Aniston froze some of her eggs when she was divorced from Brad Pitt, or even before. That might explain the apparent bravado about not rushing to get pregnant, despite turning 43 next birthday. But techniques for freezing and unfreezing eggs, and achieving fertilisation and viable pregnancies using unfrozen egss, are far from tried and tested.
The trouble with a high profile film actress like Aniston blithely saying she’s in no rush to get pregnant at 42 is that it can give a false idea of their options to younger women. Many of us know young women who do want children but have decided to focus on their careers and financial independence, or their studies, or other interests, with the idea that they can always have a baby “later”. Many of us also know women in their mid to late 30s who are panicking because they dearly want to conceive and are finding out it’s not always that easy. And then there are older women who left it too late and found their fertility just ran out when they were counting on it in order to conceive at the last minute.
Whatever Aniston may be planning, she’s fooling herself if she thinks it will be easy to conceive using her own eggs now that’s she’s pushing 43. There’s every chance that won’t be possible, unless she has a store of frozen ova.
Brad Pitt is of couse reputed to have ended the marriage to Aniston and looked elsewhere because he wanted to be a father and realised Aniston wasn’t going to risk getting pregnant any time soon. Maybe he guessed she’d still be swithering about pregnancy and motherhood in her 40s. Now that he’s fathering six children and appears to be in his element and loving these years with his young family, he must feel he made the right decision not to wait as Aniston procrastinated.
Aniston herself of course may simply want to tell the world that she just doesn’t want to have a baby. If that’s the case, it would be a simple thing to say. And, given her celebrity profile and all the publicity she gets, it would be more responsible towards young women if she did say that – instead of giving the impression that women can just decide to start having kids when they approach their mid-forties. Female fertility, unfortunately, doesn’t work like that.