When Michele Harrison turned 40, she decided to sell her New York City apartment to buy a bigger one. She could afford it after laser-focusing on her career, working late nights as a single woman, traveling constantly for ad agencies and then in marketing at ESPN.While in the process of selling, she temporarily moved in with her aunt in the suburbs. She began to notice how nice it was to see green grass and have room to breathe. She quit her job and swapped her hard-charging big-city existence for the wide-open panoramas of Colorado.One of the first tasks was a routine checkup with a gynecologist. By this time, Harrison was 41. At her appointment, the doctor got right to the point: "Do you want to have a baby?""I was like, 'I have no idea,'" says Harrison. "I was in shock. I don't think I ever really thought about having kids or about how old I was, because I had been so focused on my career."Her doctor referred her to the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine (CCRM), which has a reputation for helping "older" women get pregnant. When it comes to fertility, 35 is the tipping point that medicine calls AMA, or "advanced maternal age." It's not an arbitrary designation. A woman's fertility starts to wane around age 32, and the decline picks up speed by 37, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
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