inception

I always assumed I would have children. It would happen like this: I would get broody and this would happily coincide with me being with the right person at the right time in my life, and then - wham bam - we would sprog up and live happily ever after. I didn't attach an age to when this would happen as surely I would feel it was the right time. Despite this assumption, I proceeded to make life choices that led me to be child free in my twenties and thirties. For most of this time I never considered having children and was mostly happy not to have them. Occasionally, I would feel a fleeting sense of panic. Was my time running out? Would I even have a choice of whether to become a parent?

I changed jobs, relationships, moved countries, was happy and sad, medicated and unmedicated. Then in my late thirties I did meet the right person at the right time and I still didn't feel that urge, the need to have children that I had been waiting for. But I feared missing out. I wanted to experience as much as I could from life. I loved my partner and liked the idea of him being a father. I loved my family but it was small and would only get smaller if I didn't have children. And I wanted more love in my life: to give and receive it.

In a bar in Paris, celebrating my 40th birthday, I shouted in his ear: "I think we should go for it!" He looked confused. "I think we should try for a baby," I continued. "If it happens, it happens and if it doesn't then at least we'll have tried and have no regrets." What a care-free fool I was back in those early days of my Fortyhood!  But on that chilly November night in a Paris reeling from the recent terrorist attacks, we were nervous and hopeful.