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"If a woman has a child 'all alone' in her forties, she can now say so with pride"

2023-05-11T17:36:53.996Z

Highlights: Muriel Flis-Trèves is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst at Antoine-Béclère Hospital in Paris. In her book Why Do You Come So Late?, she recounts the journey of some of her patients, who feel a desire for motherhood after 40 years. She says many women have been cheated by time, while others have privileged, often with reason, their professional ambitions. With therapy, she says, we can finally understand what is ruled out when this is the case.


In her book Why do you come so late?, psychiatrist Muriel Flis-Trèves recounts the introspective journey of some of her patients, who feel a desire for motherhood after 40 years and live the ordeal of medically assisted procreation.


Camille waited until the second half of her life to become a mother. She became one at the age of 41, alone, thanks to a sperm donation. It was only when she was pregnant that she met the man with whom she is now raising her twin girls. Like her, Héloïse, Laurence, Sabine and Judith saw a desire for motherhood blossom overnight in their forties, and faced the ordeal of medically assisted procreation (ART). Snippets of their testimony appear in the book Why Do You Come So Late (1), by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Muriel Flis-Trèves. For more than five years, in her office in the seventeenth arrondissement of Paris, the doctor has been meeting women who are wondering about this age at which they want to have a child. If these so-called "late" pregnancies, understand after 40 years, are no longer marginal - they increased by 2.3% between 1984 and 2014 in France, according to INED - their experience may be quite singular, even more so when one lives an ART.

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Muriel Flis-Trèves, a specialist in infertility issues and a 17-year collaborator of Professor René Frydman at the assisted reproduction unit of Antoine-Béclère Hospital, hears the questions - why now? Why so late? - worries, hopes, and regrets sometimes. In compliance with medical confidentiality, she plunges the reader into the intimacy of these late motherhoods. Maintenance.

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Mrs. Figaro.fr.- What reasons lead the women you met to become mothers late?
Muriel Flis-Trèves.- Many say they have been cheated by time. Among the situations I have observed the most, I find women waiting for their "ideal man", a man who, when he arrives, does not want any more children or cannot have them. For others, it was not the partner but the answer to the question "do I want a child?" that took a long time to arrive and hatched in the forties. And then some have also privileged, often with reason, their professional ambitions; They took the time to study, build a career and travel. They do not always regret it, they feel lucky to have been able to be free to do so and protected against unwanted pregnancies thanks to contraception. In fact, they have integrated the "one child when I want, if I want" so well that they have declined it into "a child as late as possible", pinning their hopes on advances in medicine.

You also say in your book that the discovery of decreased fertility often causes a shock in these women...
That is true and it is perfectly legitimate. When they understand that they can no longer get pregnant thanks to their own eggs, it requires a time of adaptation and mourning, that of their biological fertility. Then, the feeling vis-à-vis the PMA is elaborated. To resort to gamete donation is to agree to renounce a child who is genetically his/her own, it is to break the biological filiation and thus mourn his lineage. They also understand that they will have to call on a third person and inevitably have to integrate him into their lives, one way or another. And this option is not so simple to digest.

Read alsoPr François Olivennes: "I was surprised to see that many couples did not tell their child that he was born by ART"

What is your role in supporting these late motherhoods?
I bring to these women a space of psychic freedom in which an open word and an association of ideas allow them to bring back their memories, their dreams, their personal history. Some elements of the past may have blocked the desire for motherhood and I am convinced that psychotherapy helps to see more clearly. In the book, I evoke, for example, the story of Héloïse, victim of violence at the hands of her father, who was afraid of finding herself abusive towards a child. With therapy, we finally understand what has ruled out motherhood when this is the case, and we can accept the situation. In rarer cases, my role is to accompany the failure, the mourning of motherhood and the depressive episode that can follow.

Many no longer wait to have a lasting story or the presence of a man by their side to realize this desire.

Muriel Flis-Trèves, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst

When the desire to have children comes true, are these older women less exposed to maternal regret?
It is likely, indeed. Of all my patients, none has ever expressed this ambivalence. When they become mothers, they find themselves in the realization of a totally accepted desire. Moreover, and as surprising as it may seem, this child is so wanted, that they report encountering less pregnancy inconvenience, little or no nausea for some, for example.

Being pregnant after age 40 can also expose you to judgment and remarks, whether they relate to the age of the mother or the safety of the pregnancy. Did the women you met feel guilty?
This is less the case than in the past. On the medical level, they are first reassured because these pregnancies are followed with extreme care by health professionals. Then, delaying a baby project to focus on personal and professional ambitions is now more accepted in our society. We see it when the desire for a child emerges: many no longer wait to have a lasting story or the presence of a man by their side to realize it. Today, if a woman makes a child "all alone" in her forties, it is no longer considered inappropriate or shameful, she is a "single mother" and can say so with some pride because she has worked hard to financially assume this choice. The father-mother pattern is not essential to the child's psyche. Some have friends and families whose members are present, caring, ready to play a role with the child, and who ensures the latter a quality relational life.

" READ ALSO I became a mother at 50 years old: "Many people have told me "when he is 10 years old, you will be 60!""

Are these mothers worried that they will have too big an age gap when their children grow up?
Some do, but most of my patients have reported to me feeling, on the contrary, rejuvenated by motherhood, more alive, more relaxed. This anxiety about age is more prevalent in men. In the book, for example, Joël tells me about his fear of being perceived as an "old dad", although he feels physically as young as ever at 50. It is related to his personal history, as so often in these situations. When he was a child, he was ashamed of his parents' age. Projecting himself dad meant for him having to tame the beginnings of aging and this necessarily referred him to his mortality, his anxiety of being physically degraded.

Forgetting about the passage of time, professional constraints or simply bad timing... Psychiatrist Muriel Flis-Trèves explores the intimacy of late pregnancy in her latest book. Calmann-Lévy


When these men become fathers late thanks to an ART, how do they live it?
If they rejoice as much as mothers, fears appear in relation to the post-ART period. In particular, they wonder what they will tell the child about conception via egg and/or sperm donation. Telling the whole truth to the child can make them uncomfortable because it returns to their eyes an incapacity, a powerlessness, a weakness on their part, which undermines their masculinity. Joel, for example, who used sperm donation, was afraid to be worth less in the eyes of his daughter than other fathers, those who are "capable" of having a child. In this kind of situation, when the child does not resemble them or little alike, their narcissistic love takes the hit: for them, a non-resemblance appears as the genetic substitute for the link that is lacking. My role as a psychiatrist is to work with them on this guilt-free donation. I also recommend that these parents tell the child the story of their conception. This can be done from birth or after when he starts asking questions. But be careful not to delay too much, because he could feel betrayed.

For those who are hesitant to live this experience again, how do you know if you really want to become a parent?
It's very complicated. The desire for parenthood comes when he wants and when he can. A 39-year-old patient who became a mother once told me this funny sentence that can speak to some: "I never had a desire for motherhood but I never thought that I would not have a child". Whether this desire is there or not, it is up to women to know how to hear it and especially to accept it. In the event that it does not manifest itself, we must ask ourselves if we want to go and get it or not. And until a firm decision is made, those who wish can always resort to egg freezing.

Source: lefigaro

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