Getting Pregnant Later in Life Not Always as Easy as it May Appear in Hollywood

You've probably seen a lot of glossy celebrity tabloids with bold headlines about celebrities pregnant with "Miracle Babies!"

We've heard of a number of celebrities pregnant late into their 40s and even at 50, at what doctors called "advanced reproductive age."

Some doctors are saying those headlines and other media, can sometimes misrepresent late-life fertility, giving the average public the perception that fertility is flexible.

And that trend is driving regular women to fertility specialists, asking how they can have miracle babies, too.

"I'm seeing a lot of women who, for whatever their personal reasons are, they delay," said Dr. Tiffany Jones a fertility specialist with Dallas IVF. "I think we call it now, 'living our best lives.'"

Women are overestimating the likelihood that they, too, can get pregnant well into their 40s -- just because they're healthy and still look and feel young -- and because popular culture is telling them that everyone else can.

A 2017 New York University School of Medicine Analysis said: "widely-consumed popular media downplays the impact of age on fertility and glamorizes pregnancy at advanced ages," often leaving out the facts about *how* these women were able to get pregnant.

The study said the articles rarely mentioned advanced reproductive technology, donor eggs or embryos or the health risks to mothers of advanced reproductive age.

The sad and "devastating" consequence among regular people, the study concludes, is unintended childlessness.

"I will say that after the age of 45, there's less than a one percent success rate using your own eggs," Jones said.

And women who are pregnant late into their 40s – including those celebrities we've heard about, have likely done it one of three ways: by using donor eggs, donor embryos or by using their own eggs that were previously frozen.

Freezing your own eggs is advanced technology that truly is catching on.

Dallas radio personality "Lady Jade" of K104-FM talked about her egg-freezing journey on air.

"And I didn't realize how many people didn't know this was a thing,” she said. "I didn't realize how many people had fertility issues, I didn't realize how much this was going to help other women, how empowering this was."

"As women, we are put under that microscope, so now when they ask me when am I going to have babies, I say, 'Well, I kinda have them a little bit -- they're just in a freezer right now! So I can do it later on in life."

And maybe egg-freezing parties will be the next big trend, when it comes to educating more women about what it takes to freeze eggs.

Fertility Specialists of Texas recently hosted one in Dallas, which was attended by women looking to learn more about how they, too, can push the pause button on their biological clocks.

Experts say more women should learn their options before it’s too late, and young women now being encouraged to freeze their eggs if they can.

"Freezing your eggs in your mid- and even early 30s could save you a lot of the heartache that some women have to endure when they wait later," Jones said.

But, if you are older, Jones said that doesn't mean you can't try -- if it's important to you, you have the financial means, and if you're open to the alternative options.

"But we have to always be realistic," Jones said. "And I think that in Hollywood, the depictions sometimes really aren't realistic."