Why I chose to have a baby as an independent woman.

I never thought I’d be choosing the name of my baby on my own, I thought I’d be debating it with my husband, both hoping we’d persuade the other on our favourite name. The reason this did not happen in my case, is that I don’t have a husband. Or a partner. I am single.

Ten years ago I was engaged and planning my wedding. I’d be married by 29 and start trying for kids at 30, just as I had always dreamed of. These plans came to an abrupt end, as I discovered my fiance had been having an affair whilst I was busy planning the wedding. Not to worry I thought, still plenty of time to meet someone new and get married and have children.

I’m now 39 and over the last nine years I’ve really put in the effort to make this happen. I’ve been on internet dates, blind dates, speed dates, every type of date you can think of and although I’ve had a few short term romances, I’ve not been able to find a partner that I connect with to settle down with.

The main issue with this was the tick tock of my biological clock and the mild panic that started to set in that this lack of partner meant I might miss out on ever becoming a mum. This was something I just didn’t even want to consider. This time pressure also meant I started making poor choices and tried to make unsuitable relationships work.

I was 36 when I seriously started considering having a baby with a sperm donor, 37 when I first went through the IVF process for the first time at Manchester Fertility Clinic and 39 when little Daisy was born.

Although I’m now a solo mum I don’t feel like I am bringing up my daughter alone. I have a strong network of people around me that support me both practically and emotionally and I’m very conscious of ensuring my daughter has plenty of positive male influences in her life, from my dad and brother, as well as multitude of uncles made up of close male friends of mine. She certainly is an extremely loved and cared for little girl.

I would have loved to become a mum in the more traditional way by meeting a partner, getting married and then getting pregnant, but unfortunately after much effort to try to make this happen it wasn’t to be. Time was not on my side, so I took matters into my own hands to make this happen.

I certainly didn’t dream of this when I was younger and it’s not the route I thought I would take, but I wouldn’t change it for a thing. Daisy is absolutely perfect and the total light of my life.

I have hope that now the time pressure has been taken off, I will meet a lovely man to complete my beautiful family. Family is extremely important to me and I haven’t given up hope of completing mine, but for now Daisy and I are doing just fine.

As well as the joy of becoming a mum, this experience has taught me three main things:

1) If you have a vision for how you want your life to be, you can do everything in your power to achieve it. Life might not look exactly how we originally envisioned it, but we always have choices and we are in control of fulfilling our destiny.

2) Family is more than blood relatives, it’s the people we love and chose to have in our life. Those people we dream, laugh and have fun with and are there for us through thick and thin. Each family set up can be completely different and that is totally fine.

3) Sometimes, even when something negative happens to you, it leads to something amazing. We can always find a positive outcome from a negative situation if we look hard enough.

In terms of becoming a solo mum, there is still a stigma around IVF in general and in particular women embarking on the journey without a partner. It is for this reason that I have created The Stork and I, to provide a supportive community to support other women in the same circumstances. I’m certainly not encouraging women to go it alone, but instead I’m offering support to those who find themselves in this situation and want to be empowered to be able to make a decision that is right for them and follow their vision.

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