Its a question I get asked a lot doing what I do! Like a typical mum, I’m super proud of my gorgeous girl so I often chat about her in the studio. And of course the question pops up, are you going to have another baby, or are you done now? And I have two very different answers to the question….
Likewise, its a question I often ask new mums who always chuckle at my humour…. Of course for most brand new mums, whether on baby number 1 or 3, will rarely say ‘no I want more’ a week after giving birth.
But as women, the question of children gets asked all the time, from the moment we get married, sometimes before the ink has dried on the marriage register, there is someone mentioning that its time to get on with the baby making!
So, whilst auntie Mabel’s comment gets shrugged off and you’re on to the next glass of Pinot, at the back of your mind, you get to thinking, yes, we must get on with that soon.
And that’s how it begins, for most of us, whether married or not, we decide, yep, it’s time to be a grown-up. It’s time to make us a family.
For the lucky few a couple of early nights results in those precious lines appearing on the stick all too soon. But, for all too many it doesn’t happen as quickly as we’d hope. In my 3 years of doing this job, I’ve met so many mums and dads that have found babymaking to be far more challenging than we ever thought it would be.
I mean, most of us spend the first 10 – 15 years of having sex desperately trying not to get knocked up!
Like myself, I met the man, we got married and planned to have a baby as soon as we could. Neither of us were getting any younger, so we decided not to wait around. Oh, the jokes we had about a honeymoon baby! However, long story short, things didn’t happen quite as we wanted them to, and it took 3 years and 3 rounds of very gruelling IVF to have our precious girl. Was it hard? Yes, of course, it’s a heartbreaking thing to go through as its such a numbers game, and the grief you feel when it doesn’t work is awful, but, round 3 worked for us, and I will be forever grateful that we were able to have that opportunity to try.
In the long process it took for us to get pregnant, I read a tonne of articles to try and aid conception, what to eat, what not to eat, are there certain times of day better for conception? Does it really help to lay on your back with your legs in the air for half an hour afterwards like you see in so many films? And the answers… who knows? Mother nature makes every woman different, so nothing you read in a book (or online) will guarantee those swimmers will make it to the mecca of your mummytum, and even less so that they’ll know what to do when they get there.
What are the stats?
For those of you wondering, here are the average stats (according to babcycentre.co.uk) for women TTC (trying to conceive) for the UK out of 100 couples trying naturally:
- 20 will conceive within one month
- 72 will conceive within six months
- 84 will conceive within one year
- 92 will conceive within two years
Anyway, back to the point, and the question that so often gets asked (again)! And why my answer is always twofold. Are you going to have another baby, sadly no, the longing that was there before my baby girl arrived is absolutely still there. I would love to give her another baby brother or sister, and in my heart, I’m not done yet! But the answer is always no. I’m now too old, and not only could I not go through IVF again for me, I believe it would be unfair to her to concentrate on something else with such ferocity for what could be a very long time.
That said, I’m so happy with my family and I’m so lucky to have my little whirlwind, she’s truly the light of my life, and as for babies, well I get to snuggle little ones all the time, and can merrily give them back to mummy or daddy when they need a nappy change.
What about you? The next time someone asks you when you’re going to have another baby, take a minute and think… are you really done yet?