So the clinic emailed back and the prices were higher than I expected from their website.

I discounted it, 3 tries and I’d be broke for a year.

I looked around. The clinic is 15 miles from my house, the next closest is about 70.

They were cheaper. About a grand cheaper when worked out over 3 tries.

But treatment involved scans every other day for 2 weeks. 8+ trips of 70 miles each way per try.

Days out, lots of driving, not to mention the petrol cost.

Stress.

Not whats needed when trying to be as fertile as possible.

Back to the first clinic.

As long as I can let go of the dream after 3 tries if it doesn’t work.

A quick whizz at stats online and if it’s going to work it will work within 6 tries but really within 3-4.

My friends have always joked I’m the most fertile girl around. Only took two months with both my babies.

So fingers crossed it works after one try and I can enjoy pregnancy without worrying about the debt.

Guess I now need to send my second email, asking more questions and making sure I really want to go ahead with this.

There isn’t a doubt in my mind at the moment.

I’ll call this stage one as technically it’s the first day I’ve acted on anything but in reality stage one was when I said to myself I’d never have another child with a man who I couldn’t trust to stick around, to see every moment of them growing up. I wouldn’t put another child through that wonder of ‘why’.

Then, after my last brief attempt at dating ended so disastrously and I realised it wasn’t for me, I started researching, reading about other mums who have done it, seeing what it involves. Since then it’s been about all I can see in my future, another baby, a sibling for my son with no complications, no waiting for a dad to text to see them, no being cancelled on and having to explain to a distraught child. No, just me and my family showering it with love (and a complicated explanation when they’re a bit older but I’m trying not to dwell on that)

So what am I talking about? Becoming a single mum again, but this time on purpose. After all, how hard can it be? I’ve already done it once and I was totally unprepared. This time I’ll be going into it eyes wide open!

And today I sent an email.

I acted on the desire that’s been growing inside me for years, and now I wait.

I’m sure I’ll have to contact a few clinics and that this won’t be a straightforward journey, I know people won’t ‘get it’, that it’s unusual and unnatural and I’ll end up explaining myself over and over, but to me all that matters is completing my family.

When I broke up with the father of my two children I knew I was taking a risk, a risk with my son growing up not living with his dad, but also that I wanted more children, and not too far in the future.

Obviously my first thought was to find someone else, another life partner, it took me 2 years to even consider it, I was convinced my ex would come back, but once I did start looking I went on date after unsucessful date, had ridiculous and soul destroying conversations and slowly, ever so slowly I lost the will. I found myself flicking through Tinder not even remotely interested in anyone. Messages dwindled and almost a year and a half after signing up and only one guy who proceeded to a second date (before he got back with his ex 6 weeks later) I quit, deleted them, gave up, realised I actually wasn’t interested in a relationship anymore, maybe I never had been, I’d been looking for a solution to the lonliness, but mostly a father to future children, I’m not a relationship person, I like my own space and I’m fiercly independent and I feel a slight trace of smugness when women at work complain about their men…

Ok so that was out, no perfect man, no daddy figure, no happy family, what was option 2?? A drunken night out, a one night stand that got lucky? No contact details just a baby. Maybe. It played on my mind for a couple of days, maximum. I’ve never been that kind of girl, ever. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, and knowing my luck I’d end up riddled, dying of some hideous sexually transmitted disease and leaving my kids motherless. No I couldn’t take the risk. Yes girls do it all the time and don’t catch anything, but as I said, it would be just my luck.

I don’t need a man at all really, just his sperm, cue some dodgy searches for sperm to buy online and the discovery of a danish sperm bank that shipped worldwide to clinics and individuals. At a minimum of £150/5ml for the lowest quality and then around £200 for shipping, it wasn’t cheap, and after reading some peoples less successful stories than the glowing recommendations on the site it seemed like a long and complicated process for what was unlikely to result in a pregnancy.

So no relationship, no one night stands, sperm was expensive and unreliable… What about a friend? This option seemed perfect. As many sperm samples as needed for as long as I needed, the father could watch his child grow up and be involved as much as he wanted, there must be some kind of legal stuff that would stop him having parental rights and it would all be simple. I talked to a few of my friends and one offered, actually offered. It was massive and I will never be able to explain to him what it means to me that he would have been willing to do that for me. It was discussed for months, almost planned, but then his girlfriend got pregnant and it felt wrong, looking further into it there was no removal of parental rights unless we went through a clinic anyway and even that wasn’t total, he could, if things got nasty, stake a claim, take this baby away from me…

So my final option, the one I avoided thinking about for so long because of the cost, I’m a single mum who only works part time after all, but all other options exhausted I finally looked into using a clinic. A fully medical way of getting a baby without a daddy. It’s expensive and cost wise I’m limited to 3 tries. Maximum. I’ll be paying that back to my parents for a year as it is, but a baby, a baby of my own with no complications with donor dads wanting contact or STIs.

So here I am at the beginning of this scary journey. Plunging into the unknown. Googling everything, comparing prices and sperm. All to hopefully complete my family.

Fingers crossed.