A single mother talks about self-insemination
Lisa Zanardo LONDON TIMES
Single middle-aged mum Caroline Oulton on inseminating herself during her lunch break
Ten years ago, I was a 43-year-old single mother and full-time television drama producer and I desperately, irrationally, wanted a third child. I was not in a relationship — nowhere near one, in fact.
A few years earlier my long-term partner and I had been gearing up to have another baby. We had names on standby, we had plans. Or so I thought, but then he left to marry his lover in America. I celebrated my 40th in Cornwall in a hideaway with female friends, somehow a bit of a psychological cut-off on the having more babies front. By the time I was pushing 44, the timing was getting tight, although I was dreaming incessantly of plastic beakers and designer buggies.
What to do? Suddenly I knew. I could, would even, give it a whirl by myself. Once I realised that there was an alternative to becoming bitter and twisted about being robbed of my rightful number of progeny, I didn’t have a single doubt. I knew that I might well fail to get pregnant, but I could at least seize the initiative and propel whatever ropey old eggs I still had into the path of some sperm.
I was reluctant to go through an organisation; I simply called in a favour from someone whom I trusted and had known for a while. He had something I really, really wanted that he was happy to hand over. There was no contract, just trust on both sides and a clear understanding that there would be no financial or emotional strings; immensely simple or immensely complicated, depending on which way you look at it.
The actual tippage I did myself, after a giggly handover of the fresh wherewithal at a restaurant in my lunch hour. Given the demented excitement of my boys whenever I got back from work, I could not envisage getting the peace to do it at home. I still salute the restaurant’s pretty frontage and grin whenever I drive past.
I consulted only two people in advance. My donor, obviously, and my rather cool GP. I didn’t want her thinking that a pregnancy was some kind of inept whoops. I wanted to trumpet in advance that this baby — if I was lucky enough to catch him or her — was properly wanted. My doctor was great. She said she would advise most people to embark on counselling but, knowing me as she did and given my age, she suggested that I just go for it.
I was immensely careful about the timing and I knew almost instantly that I was pregnant. I felt a little star buzzing away in my midriff — something that I hadn’t been aware of in my first two pregnancies — well before the test. I can still remember, though, marvelling at the official confirmation, that electrifyingly blue line on the tester that reduced me to happy tears in the loo at work.
When I was safely three months pregnant I confessed to the world. My sons, then aged 8 and 10, seemed excited by the prospect of a sibling and, thankfully, not particularly bothered about how the baby had got there. I felt that I must address it with them, however, and was helped by their earlier disgust at my description of sex and conception. One had interrupted me, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “It sounds horrible. Couldn’t you just get that stuff out of a bottle?” Now I was in a position to remind him of that.
I loved being pregnant and felt so happy that I fell in love with a screenwriter. We had a fairytale romance either side of the birth that ended — unacrimoniously — 18 months later. We are still great friends.
I never did get around to getting him a T-shirt to wear as we pushed my daughter around Hampstead Heath with the words “It’s not mine”.
I liked the feeling that it was me doing it alone, even though for my first two I had revelled in the coupleish nature of it.
I had felt cocooned and adored; this time I felt Amazonian and empowered.
Right now, I don’t feel agitated about being lover-less, but I am not resigned to being single for the rest of my life either.
There has been the odd bump along the way. To my surprise, some of my close family who seemed scarily relaxed about the unpleasant desertion by my partner have been overtly critical of the way I have handled this episode. I sense tuttage from time to time.
On the plus side, however, my sons’ paternal grandmother treats my daughter — with whom she has no blood link — as her granddaughter, which delights me for a number of reasons, not least because my daughter is low on extended family.
One can, of course, agonise about identity and the crucial importance of two parents in situ until the cows come home but, most of the time, the configuration of my family feels straightforwardly brilliant. We were occasionally wobbly until my daughter came along, an ucertain tripod at times, but now we are a compact flying wedge taking on all comers.
I don’t necessarily think I have handled the tricky situation of my daugher missing half of her identity well; now she’s growing up, the whole issue is becoming more pressing. She knows who her father is, but doesn’t view him as her father because, in the normal sense of the word, he isn’t. I don’t know how things will play out ... what more I can tell her?
She does know, though, that she is cherished by me and her two doting big brothers. My daughter has been the most wonderfully revivifying addition to my life.
I caught this little girl somewhat against the odds and she is just so ridiculously great
Lisa Zanardo LONDON TIMES
Single middle-aged mum Caroline Oulton on inseminating herself during her lunch break
Ten years ago, I was a 43-year-old single mother and full-time television drama producer and I desperately, irrationally, wanted a third child. I was not in a relationship — nowhere near one, in fact.
A few years earlier my long-term partner and I had been gearing up to have another baby. We had names on standby, we had plans. Or so I thought, but then he left to marry his lover in America. I celebrated my 40th in Cornwall in a hideaway with female friends, somehow a bit of a psychological cut-off on the having more babies front. By the time I was pushing 44, the timing was getting tight, although I was dreaming incessantly of plastic beakers and designer buggies.
What to do? Suddenly I knew. I could, would even, give it a whirl by myself. Once I realised that there was an alternative to becoming bitter and twisted about being robbed of my rightful number of progeny, I didn’t have a single doubt. I knew that I might well fail to get pregnant, but I could at least seize the initiative and propel whatever ropey old eggs I still had into the path of some sperm.
I was reluctant to go through an organisation; I simply called in a favour from someone whom I trusted and had known for a while. He had something I really, really wanted that he was happy to hand over. There was no contract, just trust on both sides and a clear understanding that there would be no financial or emotional strings; immensely simple or immensely complicated, depending on which way you look at it.
The actual tippage I did myself, after a giggly handover of the fresh wherewithal at a restaurant in my lunch hour. Given the demented excitement of my boys whenever I got back from work, I could not envisage getting the peace to do it at home. I still salute the restaurant’s pretty frontage and grin whenever I drive past.
I consulted only two people in advance. My donor, obviously, and my rather cool GP. I didn’t want her thinking that a pregnancy was some kind of inept whoops. I wanted to trumpet in advance that this baby — if I was lucky enough to catch him or her — was properly wanted. My doctor was great. She said she would advise most people to embark on counselling but, knowing me as she did and given my age, she suggested that I just go for it.
I was immensely careful about the timing and I knew almost instantly that I was pregnant. I felt a little star buzzing away in my midriff — something that I hadn’t been aware of in my first two pregnancies — well before the test. I can still remember, though, marvelling at the official confirmation, that electrifyingly blue line on the tester that reduced me to happy tears in the loo at work.
When I was safely three months pregnant I confessed to the world. My sons, then aged 8 and 10, seemed excited by the prospect of a sibling and, thankfully, not particularly bothered about how the baby had got there. I felt that I must address it with them, however, and was helped by their earlier disgust at my description of sex and conception. One had interrupted me, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “It sounds horrible. Couldn’t you just get that stuff out of a bottle?” Now I was in a position to remind him of that.
I loved being pregnant and felt so happy that I fell in love with a screenwriter. We had a fairytale romance either side of the birth that ended — unacrimoniously — 18 months later. We are still great friends.
I never did get around to getting him a T-shirt to wear as we pushed my daughter around Hampstead Heath with the words “It’s not mine”.
I liked the feeling that it was me doing it alone, even though for my first two I had revelled in the coupleish nature of it.
I had felt cocooned and adored; this time I felt Amazonian and empowered.
Right now, I don’t feel agitated about being lover-less, but I am not resigned to being single for the rest of my life either.
There has been the odd bump along the way. To my surprise, some of my close family who seemed scarily relaxed about the unpleasant desertion by my partner have been overtly critical of the way I have handled this episode. I sense tuttage from time to time.
On the plus side, however, my sons’ paternal grandmother treats my daughter — with whom she has no blood link — as her granddaughter, which delights me for a number of reasons, not least because my daughter is low on extended family.
One can, of course, agonise about identity and the crucial importance of two parents in situ until the cows come home but, most of the time, the configuration of my family feels straightforwardly brilliant. We were occasionally wobbly until my daughter came along, an ucertain tripod at times, but now we are a compact flying wedge taking on all comers.
I don’t necessarily think I have handled the tricky situation of my daugher missing half of her identity well; now she’s growing up, the whole issue is becoming more pressing. She knows who her father is, but doesn’t view him as her father because, in the normal sense of the word, he isn’t. I don’t know how things will play out ... what more I can tell her?
She does know, though, that she is cherished by me and her two doting big brothers. My daughter has been the most wonderfully revivifying addition to my life.
I caught this little girl somewhat against the odds and she is just so ridiculously great
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