Birth rates decline after age 35, even in late-fertility countries. However, it is unclear whether this reflects a reduced intention to have children or increasing difficulty in conceiving at older ages. Using data on women from 14 countries collected in Round 2 of the Generations and Gender Surveys, we examine how fertility intentions, pregnancy attempts and birth probabilities evolve across reproductive ages. Our findings show that the proportion of childless or parity-one women who definitely intend to have a child within three years becomes smaller starting in the late thirties. While before age 40, a lower proportion of women report trying to conceive than express a definite intention to have a child, the proportion reverses around that age. On the one hand, among women with strong intentions, the likelihood of trying to conceive increases with age, primarily due to the increased duration of attempts. On the other hand, among women trying to conceive, uncertainty and contradictory fertility intentions become more prevalent with age, revealing an increasing discrepancy between their reproductive behaviour and their stated intentions. This ambivalence is related to, but not fully explained by, older women’s perception that they may be infertile and longer attempts to conceive. Overall, reproductive attempts and intentions appear to be shaped by physiological constraints and the anticipation of biological or social constraints at later ages. How these constraints are experienced and interpreted varies across countries and is not solely related to the stage of fertility postponement, underscoring the social and cultural nature of reproduction.