MY heart sank this week when a report showed that the number of women choosing to have a baby by sperm donor has tripled in a decade.
Not because they’re ditching holding out for Mr Right in order to become a mum — good on them — but because they may have opted for IVF, thinking it is the guaranteed easy route to motherhood.
I know the agonising heartache many women face when they go down the IVF routeAlamy
With each failed round, my age, disappointment and raging hormones escalated, above moving new Netflix film JoyPA
But it isn’t. I know that because IVF broke me, financially and emotionally.
It is sad that we now have a generation of women who are delaying trying to become parents until they’re nudging 40 as they think they can always rely on that easy golden ticket.
Because I know the agonising heartache many face.
Back in the 1970s, it was the norm to have babies when fertility was at its peak, families lived close to each other to help out, there were fewer financial worries and less pressure on women to work, too.
But when my time came in the early 2000s, I was in a career where babies and work didn’t mix.
Now there are rights and benefits for women to have children at whatever age they choose.
Many are still choosing to wait, but it’s a perilous mistake that could cost them their dream of a family, if that’s what they want.
The average age of the women opting for sperm- donor IVF is 36 — when they are probably settled financially and sick of waiting for that elusive partner on a dating app to show his face.
I was around that age when I had to embark on IVF, thinking I would swiftly become pregnant thanks to the wonders of science. I was so wrong.
My husband and I ended up spending tens of thousands of pounds on treatment and needed to remortgage our home.
We were luckier than some — the Geordie and I had two rounds free on the NHS.
But when they both failed, the private clinic merry-go-round kicked in.
Failure after failure led to an obsessive determination fuelled by false promises.
I was sold injections and infusions, drugs, tests and procedures which I’m still not sure I needed — or if I was just being preyed on because of my obvious desperation.
But that one pricey “added extra” that may finally do the trick is tough to turn down.
One doctor promised us twins, another lost my paperwork and one actually gave me the wrong medication.
‘All part of the journey’
When we went down the donor route, another gynaecologist took £2,000 from us before revealing the eggs he would use weren’t from the UK, but shipped in from vulnerable women in Ukraine.
When I instantly stopped treatment in disgust, he refused to hand back a penny.
These fancy clinics boasted of amazing results. In hindsight, you realise this was often down to the fact clients repeated the process until they hit the jackpot and were seen as 100 per cent success stories.
With each failed round, my age, disappointment and raging hormones escalated.
After six years, I finally became a mum — but it happened without the help of those doctors who took my cash.
It was only then that my GP had the heart to admit: “I never thought IVF would work for you.”
He was the first medic who had talked sense to me in years. And the only one who didn’t want my money.
We all know IVF is a miraculous invention.
You only have to watch the moving new Netflix film Joy, which tells how three pioneering British scientists in the Sixties and Seventies developed IVF, to realise that.
And I know so many women who have had babies after one round of IVF on the NHS and may see the procedure in a very different way.
But the overall stats are grim.
There is just a 32 per cent chance of success for those under 35. By 35 to 37, it is only 25 per cent.
Basic maths means that 75 per cent of those women didn’t become mums through IVF.
And even if women freeze their eggs at the peak of fertility, the figures still aren’t great.
I don’t live with regret. I can’t. It was all part of the journey to me becoming a mum.
I would urge those young women who desperately want a child now — but plan to wait for that magic IVF doctor to work miracles when they’re nudging 40 — to reconsider their plans.
Because if they crack on with it now, it may actually cost them less cash and — far more importantly — less anguish in the long run.
Gregg ‘a bad Penny’
Penny Lancaster is planning to assist a misconduct investigation into Gregg WallaceBBC
SIR Rod Stewart has accused Gregg Wallace of being a “tubby, bald-headed, ill-mannered bully” and “humiliating” his wife Penny Lancaster when she appeared on Celebrity MasterChef.
It comes after Wallace stepped away as show host following a probe being launched into his alleged misconduct over a number of years.
Rod said: “Good riddance Wallace . . . You humiliated my wife when she was on the show, but you had that bit cut out, didn’t you?”
The singer is obviously furious and is to be commended for sticking up for his wife. But I find it baffling that it took him so long to do it.
And that police officer Penny – who is now reportedly prepared to talk to the “authorities” – didn’t speak up herself.
WHEN I read about John the cat, who got stuck up a drainpipe and needed sedation to be freed, I was reminded of my first pet – a cat called Willy.
Not because Willy got stuck up a drainpipe, but because, like John, my cat was a girl.
I imagine that John is called John as he’s a modern cat. Willy was called Willy due to a cock-up.
Fish and chip enthusiast John Tinniswood has passed away at the age of 112PA
THE world’s oldest man, John Tinniswood, has died at the age of 112 in his Southport care home.
And I bet I’m not the only one whose first thought was, “How did he live that long?”
Well, John, above, says he enjoyed fish and chips only on a Friday because, “if you drink too much or you eat too much or you walk too much; if you do too much of anything, you’re going to suffer eventually.”
What brilliant advice. It worked for him. RIP John.
A Prince themed action toy? Go figure
Prince William looked like an action figure in his Army uniform this weekSplash
RUGGED beard – tick. Broad shoulders – tick. Full Army uniform – tick.
However, despite the resemblance, this isn’t Action Man but our very own Prince William.
He joined soldiers from the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards for a live-fire exercise on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire on Tuesday, with one admiring fan saying: “Prince William aging like a fine wine!”
Isn’t he just? If the bosses at Hasbro got their skates on, they could whip out Action Prince in time for Christmas.
A date with Kate
Kate Moss proves she has still got it with a dazzling new modelling shoot for ZaraMert Alas and Marcus Piggott
JUST like rockers Oasis, Kate Moss yesterday proved she still has pulling power when her new range with Zara went on sale.
Alarms started to go off on my phone from 8.45am telling me to log online at nine, which I dutifully did.
Seconds later the sparkly dress I had my eye on had gone and the red sandals were no longer on sale. Gutted.
But a friend was in a real-life, all singing and dancing, High Street Zara store.
They told me the dress was sold out — which is probably just as well, mutton and lamb and all that – but I am now the very proud owner of the shoes.
And I also received a life lesson.
If Kate does another collection I will actually drag myself to the shops.
Alerts rival lunacy
A trigger warning over a series based on Disney+ show Rivals is simply ridiculousSanne Gault
THESE trigger warnings are getting out of hand. The latest stupidity is over the film Wicked.
Viewers are warned that the green-faced witch is “mocked, bullied and humiliated because of her skin colour”.
My personal favourite, though, comes at the start of TV series Rivals, with delicate viewers being given the warning that there may be sex, drugs and tobacco depictions shown.
This is a Jilly Cooper bonkbuster from the Eighties – something would have gone very wrong if there wasn’t.