Speaker: What is the 'Ticking Clock Group' of women?

Gloria MacDonald: The first group of women is what I call the Ticking Clock Group and these women are range in age from 37 say sometimes even up to 44, 45, 46 and these are women who are desperate to have children. That biological clock is ticking and believe it or not I find of all the women that I have to work with, this is really the most challenging group of women because they are desperate and it is almost like, "I want to have a baby; can you find me a sperm donor?

" Their desperation very often comes across; they have left finding men till quite late or maybe they have been looking for men, but they just have not found that person; maybe they have been married and they wanted to have children, but it did not work out; so they have been through a divorce. Sometimes women just are not realistic about their opportunities and their chances here. I do find women, as I said, sometimes they are even 44, 45-years-old, who have not even met a men yet and they still want to have a baby, is their top priority, so by the time they meet a man if they are 44, they might be 45, 46 and they still then need to try to get pregnant and it just does not happen as easily. There have been all kind of scientific studies done that really show that by the age of 38 to 40, the biological workings change and it truly does get more difficult to get pregnant. It is more challenging to keep the baby, miscarriages are much more frequent. So the other thing I found is that men who want to have children and it does not matter what age, they are from 38 up, because man do not have the same type of biological clock; they do not have the same limitations that women do, in terms of their age and their ability to have children. Although scientific studies are showing more and more that age is a factor in men being able to procreate. It is not anyway near as much a factor as it is for women; but men who are still looking to have children genuinely do not want to meet a woman who is over 38-years-old because they know, it is fascinating, I have seen this over and over again 38 is this magic timeline for them. They figure, okay, the woman is 38; I am going to meet her; we are going to date for a year; now, she is 39; we are going to get married; we want to spent the first year of our marriage together and have fun. Now, she is 40, and we are going to try to start to have children at the age of 40. So if you are much over 38 and the man is going through that in his mind in terms of the timeframe and how things are going to work out, if you are 40-years-old, he is thinking, now, you are going to be 42, 43 before you even start to have children" and it stops. So, I understand that the desire and the need to have children is really strong for some women and it can really be a huge driving force. So I recommend what you really have to do is you have to sit down and we have this exercise in our book 'Laws of the Jungle: Dating for Women Over 40' in a little bit more of more detail, but sit down, close your eyes and imagine yourself, your life with a wonderful man without a baby, how does that feel to you? Think about that. Then close your eyes and imagine your life with the baby, but without a man; how does that feel to you? Which one of those feels matter to you; because you may just have to live without one or the other? You may have both, but you really have to know and understand what your priorities are and what you can live with and without. Maybe, you are going to make that decision to become a single mother. Maybe you are going to adopt, maybe you are to go to a sperm bank, there are all kind of different ways and maybe you are going to take the step of becoming a mother without a father for the child; but maybe you just decide, you know what, finding an incredible, wonderful man is the first priority in my life and if I have children, great. If I do not, I can live with that; but it is really a decision you have to make; you have to understand, which is your first priority. I love this cartoon from my book 'Laws of the Jungle: Dating for Women Over 40' and frankly, I think it says it all about the 'Ticking Clock Group'.

'There are times when I swear I can actually hear the ticking.

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