Sea Change

Something weird has happened to me. No, I'm not pregnant! I think I've worked so hard on trying to accept my life the way that it is and appreciate the things that I have that I've gone a bit too far the other way and I'm not sure I even want a baby now.

It started to occur to me the other day when my husband and I were lying in bed and doing our usual Sunday morning routine of fantasizing about what we'd do with our lives if we got up to discover that we'd won the lottery jackpot.

We were talking about the house we'd buy and the holidays we'd go on and what we'd buy for our son. It occurred to me that if money was no option, IVF wouldn't necessarily be top of my priority list anymore. We'd have a holiday to Florida at Christmas and then next summer, we'd spend the whole summer holidays touring around China, Japan, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand, then the summer after we'd do a big tour of America taking in all the theme parks and Hard Rock Cafes. When would we fit a baby into that? We couldn't do it with a baby, so my son would miss out and frankly, so would we. We didn't win the lottery, so perhaps it doesn't really apply, but it did make me realise that perhaps I do really like the life that I've got.

Perhaps the age gap between my son and any siblings is too large anyway. In five years, he'll be finishing school and we won't be tied to this area and can move wherever we like and do whatever we like. If we want to move to another country, we can. If we want to run a pub in the countryside, we can. If we want to run a bed and breakfast in the Lake District, we can. The world will be our oyster. Not so if we had a baby between now and then.

Plus, there's the practicalities of raising a child. We wouldn't have as much money and we don't have very much now. We don't know anyone in this area, so finding babysitters would be a challenge. What about school holidays? We can manage them now because I can send my son off to my mum's for a week or more at a time, but she can only do that because he takes care of himself. She's in her 70s and definitely couldn't cope with one or more baby.

I feel a very real sense of freedom now that I've accepted that our life now isn't as incomplete as I'd thought. Of course, if a miracle was to happen and I found myself pregnant, it would be wonderful and I'd quickly get very excited about it, but I no longer feel a desperate desire to find the money for IVF. If we did come across £5000, I'd carefully consider what we'd spend it on. A fantastic family holiday? A car? A very small chance of a baby that I'm not sure is now needed for me to feel that my family is complete? I'm honestly not sure.