Kudos to Gillian Lockwood, medical director at the Midland Fertility Clinic in the United Kingdom, for telling women what they need to know rather than what many want to hear. The ideal age to get pregnant, she said, is 25.

Recognizing this doesn’t mean all women should get married and become pregnant at age 25. It doesn’t mean women should do anything, other than take the information to heart and factor it in when mapping out their lives. “The bleak reality is that the chance of IVF working with your own eggs once you are 40 is absolutely abysmal,” adds Lockwood.