Isha Sesay

If you'd told the 16-year-old me that at 46, I'd be divorced, single and having a baby on my own — by choice! — I'd have shuddered and firmly said “no!”

When the word “pregnant” flashed up on the tiny screen, I screamed and fell to my knees before bursting into tears. In the two weeks that followed the procedure, my mind raced uncontrollably and I battled the urge to take an early pregnancy test. The next morning I got up long before the sun was up, anxiously headed to my bathroom and opened the box. So, I decided to take control of my life and settle on the bravest and scariest decision I have ever made: to have a baby on my own. But with each passing day, I grew more fearful and anxious about my chances of being able to successfully carry a child. With two failed attempts to my name, I approached my third embryo transfer with relatively low expectations. And with my biological clock ticking down, if I was waiting for the right man to come along before I did it, well, I might just find myself out of time. But perhaps most challenging of all has been the emotional dimension of this journey, especially surrounding my choice of a sperm donor. A brief marriage to a kind man didn’t result in children, and then the year I turned 40, my mum had a catastrophic stroke, leaving me no emotional space to contemplate anything other than caring for her. Essentially, it forced me to re-examine my own upbringing, values and worldview. I had many long conversations with myself and tried to get to grips with questions about what it would mean to not have the support of a partner, both emotionally and financially. Back then, I had very definite ideas about the future course my personal life would take, and it didn’t look like this.