Things I Learned. #1
1. Twenty-nine is OLD. I have always thought that 29 was still a good age to have a baby. I mean, most of my friends don't even have kids yet. But in my first appointment, my first OB called me "old" when I complained that this pregnancy was more difficult than my previous 2. By OLD, she didn't mean old, but she meant older than the usual women. I thought she was kidding, but 2nd and 3rd opinions by OBs agreed - 29 is apparently not "young". Which was odd. When I was 12, I always assumed 28 onwards was the marrying age. The risk of having a baby with chromosomal disorders increase as a woman grows older. The most common of these disorders is Down syndrome, a combination of mental retardation and physical abnormalities caused by the presence of an extra chromosome. At age 25, a woman has about a 1-in-1, 250 chance of having a baby with Down syndrome; at age 30, a 1-in-1,000 chance; at age 35, a 1-in-400 chance; at age 40, a 1-in-100 chance; and at 45, a 1...