Long gap between marriage to birth of child

[Ashtone]

Can anyone beat this? My grandmother didn't have her first (and only) child until 17 years after she married. I know for a fact that my grandmother never wanted children. So it probably explains the 17 year gap. Apparently the pregnancy came as quite a shock. She was not pleased, to say the least.

[CaroleW]

My friend's g/dtr married in 1994 & had her first child in 2013.  She was 41 & conceived naturally.

2yrs later she gave birth again - no IVF etc

[Ashtone]

But that would be during the age of contraceptives. Sorry, I should have indicated "gaps during the pre-contraceptive era" in my post. My grandmother married in 1908 and gave birth to my mum in 1925.

[CaroleW]

Don't know about contraception but do know they were really desperate to have children & all tests showed nothing wrong.  They eventually just gave up as they had been married for so long - and that's when it appears to have happened 

[coombs]

While it was through IVF I read a couple who wed in 1962 aged 17 had their first child in about 2020, 58 years on.

Actor John Cleese was born 1939 and in his autobiography he said they wed in 1923 and he is an only child. This was before IVF and the like but his mum was 40 when John was born so still young enough. Makes you wonder if there was conceptions but miscarriages (often very early ones) beforehand if such a gap between marriage and first child being born.

I have a couple who wed in 1748 and I thought their first child was born 1760 but they had one in 1750. No known births between 1750 and 1760. Next one after 1760 was a son in 1764, and I just found a 4th once, 1774 burial noted "Hannah, daughter of Richard and Judith Titshall" but no age given.

[Ashtone]

I'll give my grandmother her due. Her husband went permanently "AWOL" shortly after my mum's birth.
So granny made all the usual sacrifices for my mum. At least she never considered putting mum up for adoption. They had a rather "detached" mother-daughter relationship at times, from what I witnessed. Surprisingly, mum was the more aloof one. It's almost like she knew she wasn't wanted.

And no miscarriages that I know of with my granny. She was a strict Victorian "Children should be seen and not heard" relic. She was not a fan of children.

[Maiden Stone]

But that would be during the age of contraceptives. Sorry, I should have indicated "gaps during the pre-contraceptive era" in my post. My grandmother married in 1908 and gave birth to my mum in 1925.

Birth control methods existed. "Married Love" by Marie Stopes was published 1918. A prominent female member of the Chartist movement had written a pamphlet about family planning a century earlier.
"Lark Rise to Candleford", an autobiographical novel was set in late C.19th. An episode of the TV drama based on it featured a storyline in which the author, eldest daughter in a large family, sent away for a family planning booklet which she presented to her mother. This was in rural Oxfordshire.
Another historical drama TV series based on real people, the Pre-Raphaelite artists in mid C.19th, was repeated last month. Dante Gabriel Rosetti, artist & poet, a founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, was a notorious womaniser, but used contraception, according to the drama. John Ruskin, his patron and art critic, achieved notoriety for the opposite reason -  his marriage wasn't consummated and was annulled.
 

[steadyrollingman]

And to think I begin to doubt my findings if I discover a couple didn't have a child in the first five years of their marriage...

[BumbleB]

My parents married in 1933 and I was born in 1942.