You might want to check out the yahoo group GAARP (gracefully aging adoptive refined parents) for discussions of parenting young kids after 40.
And good luck on conceiving, even with IVF (and donor egg at this point). The odds are pretty slim in your 40's without significant intervention or without great blessed good fortune (and maybe good genes from a family of woemn that bore children late in life). In your 40's most doctors will tell you not to wait too long to seek fertility assistance if you are actively trying and not succeeding. One of the great myths of the woman's movement is about being able to have it all when YOU think it's time. Nature often has other plans for our body than what we want
My grandmother was 18 when she had her first child and 44 when she had her last.
I will not use IVF.
To me, the odds do not justify the cost and aggravation.
We are just thinking of trying the good old fashioned way and leaving it up to God.