I never thought infertility would happen to me

Sophie Axford, 31, married, GP in Derby
Most of my twenties were spent working extremely hard to get where I am today — a GP with a four-day-a-week job, a fantastic husband and a good income. The £40,000 of student loans are tidily paid off and replaced by a suburban mortgage.

My life had mostly turned out the way that the control freak in me planned it. But until very recently one thing was missing. Until about three months ago my thirties were dominated by infertility. It was our dream and goal to have had at least one child before hitting the “three oh”, but we were seemingly infertile through no fault of our own.

We decided to try for a baby once I finished my GP training in 2003, but as the months went by we started to get slightly worried. I began doing all that I thought I could to maximise my fertility.

I googled my heart out. I made stunning basal body temperature charts. I consumed every vitamin that I could think of. We tried experimenting with different sexual positions, organic diets, alcohol-free months and acupuncture. Our sex life, of course, started to suffer.

After a year, we had a series of investigations that found no obvious reasons why I hadn’t conceived. We were normal.

Our lives seemed to be put on hold for two and a half years as we tried. It totally dominated our thoughts and decision-making because we were always thinking, well, we shouldn’t book this holiday in case I became pregnant: we should save money and not splash out because we should save for maternity leave. We even moved to Derby to be close to my parents because they were ideal babysitters.

As a medical student, I had this vague awareness that infertility happened, but I never thought it would happen to me. I also hadn’t realised what a taboo subject infertility seems to be.

Those friends who are in the know have almost squirmed with embarrassment when it is mentioned, as if I have admitted to a tendency towards something akin to a perverted sexual act.

But I’m now pregnant. The baby is due in December. We did try IUI (intrauterine insemination), a precursor to IVF (in vitro fertilisation); you are given drugs to induce ovulation and the sperm is cleaned and put inside you, so it’s quite an unromantic procedure.

But in actual fact the scans showed that we probably conceived about three days before that happened. So we’re not really sure and we don’t really care how it got there because it’s there.

Women who don’t want children are in denial

Andrea Manning, 39, self-employed, single mother of one, London
I think my situation is the next step on from the Bridget Jones era. I’m 39, single and have a one-year-old daughter and life has never been better. Most girls tell themselves, ‘If I get to a certain age, and I haven’t had children, I’ll go ahead and do it on my own’. The one thing I was always very clear on is that motherhood was something that I didn’t ever want to miss. I knew I wanted a child much more than a husband.

It didn’t even enter my head in my twenties to settle down and have a baby. I had an unplanned pregnancy then and didn’t have it. I was having a good time: drinking, smoking and changing jobs.

With hindsight, I probably should have started looking for a husband when I was 23 and not now when I am set in my ways and so strong-minded. Now in my thirties there is a dearth of good men. Either that or I have appalling taste.

Women of my age who say they don’t want kids are in denial. You’re scared to admit that you’re desperate. About two years ago I was at that point when I was thinking that I would like to have a baby — I was considering various options from artificial insemination to fostering — and then, randomly, got pregnant by mistake. So many girls of my age and in my position would love to get pregnant by mistake.

It was with a chap I was seeing on and off, and he was with somebody else and it was never going to work out. He’s made no contact at all.

I hate that single mother thing — every family is a single mother because there’s only one mother and one father. But as soon as you say single mother, people kind of think of that teenage, housing-estate, living-off-benefits scenario. But I think there’s going to be a whole generation of well-to-do single mothers.

Men are getting less and less necessary. I don’t know how couples maintain relationships while looking after a brand-new baby. I couldn’t have. In many ways doing it on your own is easier. You don’t have to compromise when making decisions. I run my own business and have a nanny, so I have lots of help and support.

I would love to meet somebody. I am ready to start dating again since Isabella has just turned one and I’ve got my figure back. I think now I’m the perfect date because my clock’s not ticking. Most men are scared of a woman in her thirties because they think, “Oh my God, she’s going to want babies next week”. But I’ve done it.

I regret not launching my own business sooner

Sam Willoughby, 34, runs own business, married, one child, 2, Hampshire
Your thirties is a time when your personality consolidates and your home life and work life consolidates. The best decision I’ve ever made was consolidating my job experience — working as a project manager for a major insurance firm — into a career. I now run my own business because returning to work with my then employer wouldn’t allow me the flexibility I wanted.

When I was pregnant, the plan was to go back part-time, but my former employer had part-time roles only at a lower level. I completely understood their view that a project manager had to be available five days a week when a project was running, but when I suggested taking on a consultancy role there was really no interest at all. It was quite traumatic to feel as if I was being discarded.

But after Alice’s birth I wasn’t as keen to go back to an office environment. I wanted to do something. I didn’t want to — I know it sounds awful — just be a mum. I wanted something that was mine and it was kind of an opportunity to do something different but use all of that experience that I’ve had in business and do something that fitted around Alice and was also child-related. I launched a website directory (www. whatsonforlittleones.com) of activities for children under 5 last March. We are just starting to turn a profit. In some ways I regret not launching my own business sooner. But you have to be at the right place in your life.

I would never have quit my job just to do the business because financially it would have been mad. I was earning about £60,000 a year and when I gave up work the result was that it halved our income. I’m only now earning just about a quarter of what I used to make.

My husband is in IT and we were able to manage on his salary and in reality our life-style didn’t change dramatically. I say to people that I don’t know what I used to spend my money on. We had so much more money yet I don’t know what we did with it.

I think a bit more now when we spend it. It’s not just a case of saying, “We’ll just buy that or we’ll just go on holiday”. We have to think where the money is coming from. But it’s not as if we deny ourselves going out for a meal.

I don’t think women can have it all. There’s always something that’s got to give. So you often feel as if you’re spreading yourself a bit too thin.

Anyone looking at me would think I had it all. I’m able to look after my daughter; I now have ten people working for my business; and we live in a three-bedroom cottage in Hampshire on a third of an acre. I do realise that I had some lucky breaks, but I have worked hard for it.

I became pregnant and went off my career

Lisa Jackson, 37, married, with a son, 7, and daughter, 8, Suffolk
Being a thirtysomething woman is a dangerous time hormonally.

I met my husband, Kevin, when I was 18 and we got married after I finished my degree, but neither of us was interested in children. I was focusing on progressing in my career in marketing. But then I got pregnant accidentally when I was 26. It immediately became something we really wanted, which was a real surprise. And then we lost the baby and we were absolutely devastated.

Quite soon after that I got pregnant with my daughter and it was strange — I went off my career. All of a sudden I wanted to give up work and stay at home with my child.

I remember having a silly argument with a woman in my office when I was 23, saying how horrible it would be to have to give up work to have a baby, and how breastfeeding in public was repulsive. Both things that I did, proudly, myself a few years later.

My children are No 1 in my life but I can also recall when my best friend from college and I were 20 and she actually went to the doctor to ask for a hysterectomy. And I said, I’m in there after you! But as I approached my late twenties and now in my thirties, I became very broody. I just seemed to have very strong hormonal urges.

I don’t think you can escape the hormones. I have said to my husband, in the past couple of years, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have another baby?” And he’s going, “What!” I know that in my brain, mentally, I don’t, but women are held hostage to their hormones in their thirties. Women these days fool themselves into thinking that we can have it all and that we can control everything. We are so used to being more in control, but I really think that hormones and having babies is just an area that we can’t control and it’s futile to try.

Being in your thirties now, though, is definitely better because of the range of choices that we have compared with my mother’s generation. My Mum didn’t even learn to drive until she was well into her twenties. I think it’s really sad that women continue to be in this career/kids dilemma as more and more women delay having children because they think that they’re going to be tied down. But you can find a balance. It’s no longer a taboo to work when you have children. But I think if you have a baby you have to look after it, so I prefer to work around them. I run a business from home and quite often I’ll talk to a client on the phone and they’ll ask when is a good time to call and I’ll say, “Well, I’ve got the school run at this time”. Mumtrepeneurs is this growing army of women working for themselves and looking after the kids. It’s exhausting but really worthwhile.

We agreed that we may never have children

Leigh Myles, 35, works in human resources, married, Glasgow
When I was in my twenties I wanted to be a go-getting career woman. I ran a couple of restaurants, working all the hours God sent and I was quite happy for most of the time. I thought that by my mid-thirties I would be either running my own restaurant or be a well-paid manager somewhere and that my life would be perfect: a perfect flat, with a nice car and maybe a long-term partner who would support me and be there for me. But, in reality, somewhere around my 30th birthday I lost all enthusiasm for working.

My job was very stressful, I worked very long hours. For more than a decade I had not managed to have a Christmas, new year, public holiday or birthday to myself! I really spent most of my time working and dealing with rude and obnoxious members of the public and I started to dread going to work. So, I came to the conclusion, that if the hospitality industry did not change, then I would. I had wanted to travel and be able to do simple things like go to the cinema at night like everybody else did and spend time with my husband.

I decided to retrain and did a postgraduate diploma in personnel. I now work 9-5 for a local authority and it’s been a very nice change. I earn a lot less, I do not have as much material comfort as I thought I would and I have had to make compromises in my choices of house, car, etc, but I am infinitely happier with my close relationships.

My husband and I got married and agreed that we may never have children. I actually encouraged him to keep me as his mistress and get married and have children with somebody else, but he wasn’t keen on that.

Some people think I’ve got fertility problems and I have used that excuse a few times because people are very nosy and can’t understand how it is that I have been married for ten years but have no children. It’s as if you have to validate yourself by producing.

I came from a generation where we were told we could do anything. I was the first member of my family to go into further education and then one of my sisters did too; she is now a doctor. We were raised with high expectations. My mum and her sisters are very clever but they never ever got the opportunities that we were offered.

I resent the fact that people with children get much more flexibility in the workplace and in life in general. I concede that many women with children endure a lot of discrimination in the workplace but I have been in the situation several times where I have had to work longer or do tasks that were not mine because a colleague has been off for child-related reasons. I feel that everyone should have more flexible working practices, not just parents.

I went back to work and had an affair

Sarah Wolf, 32, daughter, 2, runs her own PR business from home in Somerset
When I turned 30 I remember thinking, “This is amazing, I have a husband, I’m pregnant, we have a lovely house, life’s good”. Fast-forward to my 32nd birthday — September 2006 — and my idyllic life started to turn somewhat chaotic, all due to my own insecurities.

Having a baby in February 2005 was the hardest thing I have ever done. The pregnancy was a complete shock. It was the first time I’d ever felt really out of control. I felt as if I was failing.

Her arrival made my husband and I fight for the first time in our five-year marriage.

I found the late nights and the lack of sleep quite hard. I criticised my husband for everything he did wrong, right, different, etc. And I hated being at home.

So I went back to work when our daughter was just under six months. (We put her in private day-care.) It was the best thing I ever did, as it gave me back my independence, my sense of purpose and the definition of who I was.

It was, however, the catalyst to an affair lasting eight months in 2006 because when I was at work, out with clients and being the PR girl, I was not the boring mother, wife and domestic drudge that I was at home. Men started to notice me and flirt with me. I was receiving the kind of attention from men that I hadn’t received since getting married and it made me feel good.

When I ended it, I told my husband, he forgave me and we attempted to start afresh this year. I even set up my own PR business in January which gives me an outlet to be me and to be creative and it also gives me the flexibility to be there for my child.

My husband has always been the family, pipe and slippers kind of guy. When we first met, I was a very unconfident twentysomething, but over the years he’s always been very supportive and loving and as a result I have more confidence and a better idea of who I am.

Unfortunately, I now think I don’t really want this staid and solid life we have built together. In my eyes he’s become a really good mate. We’re not wearing our wedding rings any more and we sleep in separate beds.

I never imagined my life would be like this. I come from a very traditional family. My mother keeps telling me I’m just being selfish and that I must stick this out. That is something our generation doesn’t listen to. I think there is this disposable element to our lives and we are no longer going to put up with being unhappy and bitter and twisted and then in 20 years when the children have left home, say, “Well, I haven’t loved you and we’ve been in separate bedrooms. We have really tried but we’re going to make a change now”.

In my twenties I thought I could have it all: I was well educated, I had a degree, I had a good job. Everything was going for me. I realised that I couldn’t have it all only when my perfect marriage was crumbling around my ears. We will likely be divorced by the end of the year.

It’s lovely being single — I can do what I want

Helly Worsdell, 36, single, works for a PR firm in London
I’m single and delighted! I’ve bought my own flat, am supporting myself financially and am answerable only to myself. How lucky am I? I feel that we’re the generation that is still trying to find the middle ground and not succeeding very well. I think that only a few of us are mentally and physically capable of having it all and the rest of us should lower the bar a little for the sake of our sanity.

Very few of my full-time-mother chums are happy. They seem to feel that they’re missing out on something and my single friends whine away about not being married with children. What short memories we all have. Weren’t we battling away for the choice of being able to do either or both a few decades ago? I think women, especially in London, have got experience-addicted. It’s all about the next thing: “Oh you’ve got to go and eat there; you’ve got to go on holiday there.” And the current trend for a child as an accessory is mildly upsetting and certainly grotesque.

Having a baby has become a part of a checklist for a lot of women. You get cross-examined by them at dinner parties. I get bugged eternally by people who I’d think knew better asking if I had a boyfriend or if I am dating as if there is something lacking in my life — especially now as I am getting older. It seems that we, women, are getting more and more competitive with each other. We are more competitive in our thirties than twenties because we are more financially able to compete. The pendulum for women has swung so much in the other direction. Everybody just wants to have everything and it’s just not possible. I think everybody should just cut themselves some slack.

I used to be really concerned about the checklist in my early thirties but then I realised it was making me very unhappy. The one thing that I do worry about, though, is if I can continue the momentum of self-awareness and actually do something positive, not for me but for other women.

People are surprised when I say this but it’s lovely being in your late thirties and single because you can do what you want. There’s no one telling me what to do. I’ve got the confidence to deal with mice and spiders myself. And in regard to children, I’m single-minded and very independent and not sure I’d be able to give up my figure and sanity for something I’m not entirely convinced is a necessary addition to my life or the planet as a whole.

Don’t get me wrong, I hit a tipping point in my mid-thirties. I really was an insecure nut job in my late twenties and early thirties. I became more self-aware at 34, 35 when I realised that it was all going to be OK. I’m definitely looking forward to being in my forties. It does just get better.

Am I a failure giving up a career for my children?

Katie Bycroft, 38, married and a stay-at-home mum of three children, two boys, 3 and 5, and a daughter, 6, Leamington Spa
I didn’t expect to be in this position of being a mother and raising a family. At school I was fêted as a low-key academic, clever without trying hard and destined — or so I thought — for world travel and a career in the diplomatic service. It was assumed in the late 1980s that us girls as well as boys could do whatever we pleased and would be bound to succeed.

Families and marriage were never mentioned. It certainly wasn’t something to aim for. I wish it had been! If I had geared myself up for this life of organising home and house I feel I would be more content now. Less aware of a slight taste of failure that I haven’t had the glittering career my mum felt sure was awaiting me, as it hadn’t been for her. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.

After studying Japanese at Cambridge, I worked at the Japanese Embassy in London as a cultural assistant. But then when I hit 29 my biological clock changed everything. I never desperately wanted children like some of my girlfriends did. I didn’t feel a moment’s broodiness. But I got married that year and had a complete change of focus. A few years later I gave up my career willingly to raise my children.

I’m lucky to be able to choose to stay at home as we are able to live off my husband’s salary as a manager at IBM. But like my stay-at-home mum, in a way I didn’t have any choice. I would have needed a very high-paying job to pay people to look after the children.

Some of my friends have chosen not to have children, some cannot seem to have them. Both cases have a great impact on our friendship despite the best efforts for it not to. I feel guilty for my moaning and groaning to the friend who cannot have children; I feel on the other side of a one-way bridge with the friend who has chosen not to. How could she ever regret her decision when she sees me with my hands full with mine?

Other friends think I’ve lost a bit of sparkle, that I’m a bit worn down from raising the children full-time. While I do look forward to the chance to return to part-time work once my youngest starts school, I do feel that there should be some mention at school of the possibility that maybe we could value the mother job as much as all other jobs, and have it even as something to aim for? I can’t believe I am saying this now, having spent my teenage years arguing with my dad that girls could be as strong as boys, that anything they could do we could do better.

Now I’m ready for the things that money can’t buy

Joanna Humphrey, 30, event organiser, lives with partner in Kent
Like most single women of my age I was raised with the idea that Prince Charming would one day appear, whisking me off my feet. At 20 I thought that by 25 I would be married and settled. At 25 I thought, OK, by 30 I’ll be happily married, a stay-at-home mum with 2.4 children, and a labrador, living happily ever after, the end.

And of course life is not that simple. The majority of women today don’t want to “make do” or compromise. We want bigger, better things than our mothers; our own jobs, our own minds and our own cash. We are an independent-minded generation caught in the rat race.

I work full time, often long hours, in the City with a three-hour round-trip commute on top. I am happily living with my partner who I truly believe is the man I will grow old with. I have reached the age when I know what I want and that the dream that little girls are sold is just that: a fairytale.

Now that I am 30 my priorities have changed. I have three or four excellent friends as opposed to being part of a large, bitchy crowd.

Friendships evolve and the only way I could move forward was to drop the dead wood, the ones that I always made time for but who could never find the time when I needed them most. At 25 I desperately clung to those past their sell-by-date friendships — aspiring to be the next Carrie in Sex and the City.

In the coming years I would love to have children and be a stay-at-home mum. I feel that I’ve had my selfish phase; for the past ten years I’ve done exactly what I’ve wanted. But I’m no longer interested in painting the town red on a Saturday night or having the right shoes. Now I’m ready for the things that money can’t buy.

Part of this could be influenced by the pressure that’s associated with being childless and 30! If I could be certain that I will be as fertile in the future as I am now then maybe I would delay the desire. But I don’t want to risk the chance that we may never be parents. I daren’t even raise the debate of what if I can’t have children?

I do resent the pressure on women for this ideal life that just isn’t out there; that nature decides who is blessed with children and who isn’t.

Reading in the media that your chance of conceiving once you hit 34 drops by 50 per cent is scary! I’m one of the lucky ones. I know I want children with the man I share my life with. But what about the women who haven’t found that special someone?

I’m single at 32 and far too picky to find Mr Right

Louise Rapple, 32, self-employed piano teacher and choir conductor, single, Reading
I can’t say I’m enjoying my thirties more than my twenties — yet! I am incredibly contented with my work and social life. But then there’s the love-life. I think the only regret I really have is that I fully expected to be one of those people who met their soul mate at university, married them at 25 or so, and settled down to a long life of marital bliss. I’m not naive enough to think that married life is a bed of roses but it is still all I’ve ever wanted. Now I’m single at 32, and it seems I’m far too picky ever to find Mr Right.

My longest relationship lasted for three years; it ended last January. And my ex got another girlfriend relatively quickly and I just thought, “Oh, it’s not fair he’s got her and I haven’t got anybody”. So to be proactive, I tried internet dating.

I found that when I posted a relatively average ad, like so many of them that are: “I like going out but I also like staying in with a DVD and a bottle of wine on the sofa,” I got loads of responses but they were all from, dare I say it, relatively average blokes. I went out with three different guys and they were all very nice but I could see there was absolutely no potential for anything further, so I gave up for a while. I tried again this year and I posted a completely honest ad, and I got hardly any responses at all — even using the same photo. I basically said: “I’m not a girly girl, I don’t wear make-up except on special occasions, I hate shopping, I’m not looking for a bloke to protect me. So if you’re looking for some kind of princess to love and protect then I’m probably not the one for you. But if you’re looking for somebody who is a bit feisty but who maybe still cries at a sad film then maybe I’m the one.”

There just don’t seem to be that many eligible men out there. And if you’re barmy enough to want a man who can spell and use grammar you can knock out 95 per cent of those men that there are in your area in one fell swoop.

And then there’s the friends thing. Not only are nearly all of my friends married (I’ve been to 32 weddings and counting), but most of them are beginning to have children and are therefore not up for going out all that much in the evenings. Holidays can be difficult as it’s hard to find anyone to go on holiday with if you don’t want to share your narrow boat or holiday cottage with toddlers.

32 per cent of you who are childless want to remain childless
39 per cent of women surveyed say they earn enough
33 per cent cite children as their biggest concern
23 per cent are happy with their lives and don’t want change in the next five years
Only 1 per cent say their body is their biggest anxiety

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