How Covid has stopped women like me from having babies

“My sperm has just landed!” a friend texts. This is followed by emojis: a champagne glass, a baby bottle, and a stunned ‘What am I doing?’ face. She’s one of my many girlfriends – late 30s, some with partners, some not – stuck in a very 2020 conundrum: “How do you make a baby during Covid?”

It’s a question I too have been grappling with over the past few months – aged 39, single and keen to start a family of my own. It wasn’t that I intentionally put my career first, but it took off in my 30s, presenting me with opportunities I couldn’t say no to. And for whatever reason, I’ve never met the right man to have children with.

Add Covid into the mix and there are even more barriers to motherhood: the financial implications of a collapsing jobs and housing market are terrifying; the closure of IVF clinics mean increased times on waiting lists when the one thing you don’t have is time; and then, of course, being stuck at home without the opportunity to socialise and potentially meet someone.

This month, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that the average age of first-time mothers in England and Wales has reached a high of 30.7 years. In fact, fertility rates fell in all groups, apart for in women aged over 40, for whom it’s rising. Last year there were 16.5 births per 1,000 women over 40, and more babies were born to women over 40 than under 20.

“Yet there is still huge societal prejudice against older mothers,” says fertility expert Jessica Bourke, who opened her eponymous clinic 15 years ago in Dublin and has treated patients from Alaska to Botswana. “You have titanium hip replacements. You can grow an ear on a mouse. When it comes to fertility issues we don’t allow for the same degree of advancement.” 

I came to my own decision during a trek to Everest base camp late last year. Being single and a travel writer presented a few big – but not insurmountable – challenges. But yes, I decided, I wanted a child. Yes, I was willing to change my life for one. Yes, I was prepared to go it alone, if I had to. Surely that’s 100 times better than doing it with the wrong person?

“Absolutely,” says a friend who had been planning to leave her boyfriend before lockdown was announced in March. “The idea of moving out, isolating on my own, and meeting a new partner in time to have a baby – I am 36 – was overwhelming.” She’s now pregnant. “I have sleepless nights wondering if our relationship is strong enough.” At the end of our call she told me, emphatically, to do it alone.

It’s a decision my emoji-sending friend, Ruth*, had already taken – with the bad timing typical of 2020. “I had literally just decided to do it by myself,” she says, “I was acting out of a sense of urgency, as I had been told I had hardly any eggs left.” 

The very next week Covid came along, and everyone from Twitter users to Tatler columnists started predicting a post-pandemic baby boom. The nation, nay the planet, would be stuck indoors with nothing to do but copulate. This supposed new generation even had a name: “coronials”.

No such luck for single people like me; my pandemic was sex free. And it changed everything, torpedoing my career and leaving me financially insecure. Trapped alone in my flat, with my usually good mental health taking a battering, panic set in. Doing anything practical about having a baby was a no-go with fertility clinics closed. 

For people with fertility issues this caused genuine pain. After trying for a second baby for four years a friend was finally referred to an IVF clinic – just as they closed their doors. She says: “Even juggling working at home with my four-year-old has not changed my desire for a second child. With nothing to distract me, all there is to think about is the hole I want a baby to fill.”

Without many options, I made myself a profile on a co-parenting website, where you can look for anything from a sperm donor to a platonic partner with whom to raise a child, joined a Facebook group for solo mums and began to weigh up the pros and cons of asking a friend to be a donor. But with so much uncertainty, I found it hard to plan from week to week – let alone for anything more permanent – and began to question my decision.

I wasn’t the only one. “Why on earth would anyone want to bring a child in the world right now?” says my friend Jane* on a walk. She is 38, with a partner and one of the growing number of women choosing not to have children. The ONS data revealed a 2.5 per cent drop in births in 2019. Women aren’t just putting off children until later, some choosing not to have children at all. “When Covid hit, the overarching feeling that I kept coming back to was how grateful I was not to have children. Not just from the practical issues of having them at home while trying to work, but from the added anxiety, uncertainty and stress,” she says.

Jane is not alone in finding Covid a deterrent to parenthood rather than a catalyst: the Brookings Institution estimates there could be up to 500,000 fewer babies born in the USA in 2021 as a result of coronavirus. While we haven’t seen such a drop here in the UK, we certainly haven’t seen the predicted baby boom either – or at least not yet. Figures from NHS Digital show barely any increase in numbers of ultrasound scans from June and July this year, compared with the year before. But, says Bourke, that is not the whole story. 

“Think back to March – we were all terrified. Aside from the stress of living through a pandemic, there are all the unknowns about how it might affect pregnancies,” says Bourke. “People were prepared to delay to see how things panned out.”

When fertility clinics reopened, they reported record numbers of women asking about egg freezing. The London Women’s Clinic, which also operates in areas such as Darlington and Cardiff, said interest was up to 30 per cent higher than anticipated. Bourke continues: “They were coming to me with urgency, worried that time was running out.”

I was one of them. In August, I booked a fertility check at a clinic. The results were good but undermined by “for a woman of your age”. The consultant encouraged me to freeze my eggs, urging me to start right away. While it’s true that even pre-Covid more women in their 30s were freezing eggs than ever before – and, according to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, 55 per cent of patients freezing their eggs had no partner – it’s not the safety net that it seems.

“It’s taking advantage of women to freeze eggs and say that everything will be fine,” says Bourke. “Follicular genesis takes three months: it’s not about the age of the eggs, it’s about their health.” Eggs are fragile things: as many as 10 out of 12 can die when defrosting, and at upwards of £3,800 a cycle (you might need three) – not including the medication required to stimulate your ovaries and the cost of storing them – I felt like it was an expensive gamble. At my age, frozen embryos are more viable but I wasn’t ready to choose a donor. 

Ruth was. “I saw a solo motherhood coach, and went on a meditation; I felt a deep love grow for these children I may or may not have and knew I had to try.” The Stork and I is the UK’s only dedicated solo motherhood coaching service, offering one-to-one support and advice on everything from emotional aspects such as feelings of loneliness to practical aspects like what to consider when choosing a donor. 

After her message telling me that her sperm has landed, we have a glass of champagne, picking over all the gory details. It has come from Denmark, where donors still have the right to anonymity (in the UK children have the right to trace their donor when they turn 18) and she’s chosen a donor with similar colouring to her, so there will be fewer awkward questions from strangers. Although she is using a UK clinic where they will make the embryos and freeze them until she is ready, when I look online you can buy sperm for as little as 200 euros and get it delivered to your home.

For all that it took away, coronavirus gave me time to fully explore my decision to have a baby. And I’ve realised I don’t want to be a solo mother. I struggled with isolation during lockdown. I imagine having a child alone might feel similar. Writing this story has given me the confidence to ask a friend, whom I know has wanted a child for some time, if they would consider joining forces. For me, it’s important that motherhood happens as part of a relationship, even if it’s not the traditional kind.

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