This isn’t an existentialist – or biological – question but it is a bit navel-gazing – literally. Because that’s the question that I was asking when I found myself 36, single, sitting at the kitchen table with a syringe in my hand, gazing at my navel, before stabbing my stomach with follicle stimulating hormone. Vignettes like that tend to prompt a little bit of self-questioning…

I’ve never been one of those women who were desperate for kids. In fact as a teenager I always thought I didn’t really want them – I used to joke that they might end up like me and my sister and who’d want that? I don’t think we were particularly difficult kids, but equally, my mum didn’t make it look particularly easy – or fun.

Then at 26, the boyfriend I’d spent six years with said Continue reading →