11th-hour pregnancy

Catherine McAlpine was 41 when her son, Nathaniel, was born. She was 42 when she and her husband, Rick Eig, started trying for another baby.

Two years and a series of unsuccessful fertility treatments later, Ms. McAlpine, now 44, has learned a lot. There still is no sibling for Nathaniel, though. The couple is looking into adoption.

“You hear all about [in-vitro fertilization] and medical advances,” says Ms. McAlpine, a social worker who lives in Rockville. “You see celebrities having babies in their 40s. Being a parent has been the best experience of my life, and I want to do it again.”

Indeed, more women then ever are becoming mothers at a later age. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that nearly 25 percent of American mothers are older than 35 when their first child is born. Advances in fertility treatment have made it possible to push the upper limit of a woman’s fertility window.

In some highly publicized cases, the limit has been catapulted. Television host Joan Lunden, 52, recently became a mother of twins (via a surrogate) for the second time in two years. Actress Geena Davis had twins at 48. Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former vice presidential candidate John Edwards, had two children in her late 40s.

Aleta St. James, a New York woman who gave birth to twins in the fall shortly before her 57th birthday, told reporters soon after: “It is never too late. You are never too old. It is just in your mind.”

Stories like these irritate Cara Birrittieri, author of the book “What Every Woman Should Know About Fertility and Her Biological Clock.”

“I remember being 35 or 36 and seeing magazine covers with ‘Twins at 45!’” Ms. Birrittieri says. “I thought, ‘I’ve got time, and there is medicine.’”

Ms. Birrittieri, who lives near Boston, was 40 when she fairly easily conceived and gave birth to her son, A.J. Next up came a long road of treatments, miscarriage and insurance hassles. Ms. Birrittieri, now 45, and her husband, Jackson Smith, welcomed daughter Victoria last June. Victoria was conceived using a donor egg.

It’s likely most of those celebrity babies were, too. While those high-profile moms welcomed the publicity about their new arrivals, they have been more vague about whether they used donor eggs.

“All that publicity is hurting younger women who believe that medicine is performing miracles,” Ms. Birrittieri says. “A lot of women don’t understand what the medical reality is.”

Dr. Paul Gindoff, division director of George Washington University Medical Center’s Fertility & IVF Center in Northwest, agrees. He says the high-profile pregnancies, coupled with a basic lack of knowledge about how and why fertility declines, is leading to some confusion among hopeful older parents.

“Women who are having babies over age 46 are by and large using donor eggs,” he says. “Much of the population does not realize that.”

The biological clock

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