Dr. Li-Shei Lin Discusses a Woman’s “Biological Clock”

Starting a family wasn’t a priority for Lindsay Albanese, a former celebrity fashion stylist turned entrepreneur and content creator who describes herself as “career-driven out of the gate.”

She met her husband in 2006, but the couple waited seven years before getting married. Over the next few years, the pair remained happily child-free, chasing their dreams of building their own businesses and traveling the world. It’s not that Albanese didn’t ever want to have children; she just didn’t see the rush.

“I had such a great partner and came from such a great family. I was like, ‘Eventually I’ll have kids,’” she tells Yahoo. “And then all of a sudden, I was 38 and I looked at my husband and said, ‘We gotta do this.’” That’s the moment Albanese says her so-called biological clock started ticking.

Scientifically, the term “biological clock” refers to the way that hormones govern cycles like sleep and metabolism, according to Dr. Li-Shei Lin, an ob-gyn and reproductive endocrinologist at Reproductive Partners Fertility Center. “But when we use the phrase for women, it usually means the natural decline in fertility that comes with ovarian aging,” she tells Yahoo. “Women are born with a fixed supply of eggs, and we don’t make new ones. As time passes, both the quantity and the quality of those eggs go down, which is why fertility potential gradually declines.”

But, she adds, “The biological clock doesn’t just tick in our ovaries, it ticks in our culture too,” referring to the expectations on women to have kids.

Albanese, who at 45 is now a mother to a 7-month-old girl, describes it as an internal sense of urgency that began once she felt ready to take motherhood on. But not every woman feels ready for kids — or even interested in having them, ever — when their biological clock rears its head. Dr. Sheryl A. Ross, the author of She-Ology: The Definitive Guide to Women’s Intimate Health, known as “Dr. Sherry,” says that’s normal. “A woman’s reproductive timeline will vary from person to person; everyone has their own personal pathway,” she tells Yahoo.

Here’s what three other women told us about theirs.

Alex Hill has seen the biological clock concept in action, from hearing friends discuss their own anxieties around fertility and aging to seeing peers in her social media circle have kids. But she didn’t feel like that looming deadline applied to her, which is something she attributes to her cultural upbringing as a Puerto Rican and Black woman. “I think it’s hush-hush in our community, because it’s a cultural thing of like, Black women can have babies, we will be fine,” she tells Yahoo.

Hill had actually experienced two pregnancies herself, both of which she had terminated during a six-year relationship because she and her then partner were not ready to be parents. Then she found herself single at 34 and suddenly pining for a baby. At 36, she decided to freeze her eggs.

“I did it because I wanted to just take control,” she says. “If I want to be a mom, this is how I’m going to take control of what I want.” Hill thought the procedure would buy her some time, but her egg count was lower than expected, and she still feels a sense of urgency when it comes to finding a partner and starting a family.https://www.instagram.com/p/DNTNOYXVfzy/embed/captioned/?cr=1&v=12

Now, at 37 years old, Hill thinks about her biological clock on a daily basis. “It can be a fleeting thought every day,” she says. “I literally said to myself today, ‘I can’t believe I’m here. I can’t believe I’m 37 and I’m not married with kids.’”

Asia Solnyshkina, from Russia, felt that type of pressure a decade earlier than Hill — not because of personal desire, but due to societal expectations. “I grew up in a culture where doctors and relatives insisted that 27 was practically the deadline to have kids. That pressure shaped my 20s,” she tells Yahoo. “When you have a deadline to have kids, you have a deadline for marriage, as well, so that you can have a kid in a proper marriage with the right person.”

By 24, she was with her husband, and at 27, they had their first child together. “It crossed my mind that maybe I was way too old [to become a first-time parent],” she says. Only later, after traveling and experiencing other cultures, did she realize how limiting that mindset had been. “At 27, I basically was a kid,” she says.

Solnyshkina waited another five years to have her second child and ultimately decided to leave Russia to live in Mexico City. Now a tech founder, she hopes to eventually raise her kids in the United States, where she feels there is less pressure on young women to start a family.

“I really don’t want my daughter to have the same burden and the same life expectations,” she says. “I’m 37 now and feel like it would have been OK if I had my kids at this age, when I’m financially stable, when I’ve already built something in my life.”

As Solnyshkina sees it, the pressure she faced might have had more to do with societal ideas than biology. The concept of the biological clock, she believes, isn’t universal. “We all have different bodies, different health issues and genetic backgrounds,” she says.

Allison Villa decided long ago that she didn’t want to have children. “I’ve never had that maternal desire,” the 38-year-old tells Yahoo. “Even in high school, I used to tell my best friend that I don’t want kids.” She hasn’t wavered.

Villa started dating her now husband when she was in her early 30s, and made sure that he was on the same page. “He didn’t want to have children, so from there we made the final decision to move forward in our life being child-free by choice,” says Villa.

The couple run a business together and, according to Villa, feel the decision not to be parents has given them both more freedom — financially, emotionally and logistically — to pursue goals that might be more difficult to achieve while raising children. Villa says that their family and friends are all supportive of the decision, “and that’s all that really matters to me.”

Although it’s allowed her to feel like she’s opted out of the biological clock in ways, she says that there is still a very natural physiological aspect to it. “Around my period, I start to go, ‘Oh, kids actually look a little cute.’ And then five days later, I’m like, ‘Oh, nope. I’m over it.’”