Even Bridget Jones Has a Fucking Baby
Photography by various artists from the Birth Becomes Her series
It's my 39th birthday and my boyfriend is driving across London to some overpriced plant-based restaurant I've chosen for lunch with friends. We're in-between rounds two and three of IVF. I've fully nailed this celebrating with sparkling water thing.
And that's when I see it: a gigantic poster of Renée smiling coyly with a man over each shoulder. My jaw drops. Bridget — vapid, big knickers wearing, obsessed with trying to get a bloke, dieting and glugging chardonnay Bridget — is pregnant. So it's with utter injury that I blurt out: "Even Bridget Jones has a fucking baby?" Seriously, how did this happen? If I knew then that I'd still be trying to hike the long, uphill road to motherhood, I might have jumped out of our moving car, climbed up the billboard and sucker punched Renée's smug pregnant face. Instead, I'm the one who's been repeatedly punched by round after round of failed IVF.
The irony that we grew up with the message 'do not get pregnant' burned into our frontal lobe is not lost on me. I've never been a strict follower of rules, but I've without trying, obediently stuck to this one. I want to tell my body that it's OK now; I didn't shame my parents with an unwanted pregnancy. We're good to make use of that uterus.
Cover by Jen Conway. Above by Vanessa Mendez.
It's actually quite crazy how little we know about our bodies. Admittedly I was too busy chatting in biology class. But had I been all ears, there still wasn't enough education on the female reproduction system. Sex education consisted of a teacher demonstrating how to put a condom on a cucumber. With the focus on contraception and avoiding genital warts, we were led to believe that we'd be able to conceive as soon as we wanted to. There was zero mention of us having a four-day fertile window each month (it was a complete revelation discovering that it's actually quite hard to get pregnant). They never warned us that our eggs have an expiry date (probably due to the fact that we're the first generation to test how late is too late to use our own eggs). Teachers scared us with the risks of teen pregnancy, and we went the other way. Being a teen mum has dropped to a record low, while geriatric mothers soar.
Unsurprisingly, it takes a Scandinavian country to guide us into the light. With a declining birthrate in Denmark, and a rise of 'solomors' — women using sperm donors and electively becoming single mums — schools are making a switch from the 'don't get pregnant' message, to educating their students about infertility. Emotionally and financially-sucking rounds of IVF, or using an egg donor or sperm donor aren't the game plan for most people, but it's today's reality and the more we're aware of this, the better. Going through fertility treatment feels a bit like an adult-learning biology class where you get the science bit of how babies are made — sat in front of a consultant who squiggles their pen on a piece of A4 and explains genetics and cell division and draws a graph representing the rapid decline in eggs once you hit certain ages. It's very enlightening learning this for the first time in your late 30s, if a little overdue.
“I pictured popping three out by the time I was 35”
I spent over a decade desperately trying to not get pregnant, to only now be on the flip side. I took the morning-after pill more times than I can remember. Being ushered into a tiny cubicle by some sex-shaming pharmacist to be asked when and how it happened. Never to be asked where I was in my cycle (chances were the majority of those times I wasn't even near ovulation). But the story about a friend who had an abortion was always motivation to take the morning-after pill anyway. Y'know, just to be safe that you don’t get pregnant on day 26 of your cycle.
Kayla Gonzales
Of course, leaving it until your late 30s to try and get pregnant isn't always out of choice. It certainly wasn't my M.O. I wasn't so obsessed with my career that I forgot to have babies. I forget to send birthday cards and forget to pick up toothpaste. But babies? I had them on the list. I've always known I wanted kids. It's never been my raison d'être like for my friend Lucy, who turned up to a 'dress as the person you want to be when you're older' party in a wedding dress and fake baby bump. But I always saw myself with a career and a house full of Lego on the floor. I pictured popping three out by the time I was 35. But the timelines we set ourselves when we're younger can get scuppered — by an ex you thought was the one, falling for yet another Peter Pan, or not meeting someone you'd want to introduce to your family, let alone procreate with.
Although I am wildly off course to the schedule I imagined my life would follow, I'm learning to surrender control and let things happen in their own time. Sure, it's packed with frustration. I'd berate myself for not being able to pursue my dreams. Brood over Instagram, full of envy over the lives of others. But over time something shifted, I realised that being a mother doesn't define womanhood. That even though I want to have the family I always imagined (like right this minute), I also don't want to wish away time and focus on the place I wish I were in. I want to enjoy life now. As I'm involuntarily eking out life before kids, I may as well enjoy what life that offers. I'm going to binge-sleep and binge-read and watch every film I want whenever I want, and I'm going to spend my money on kid-unfriendly holidays and expensive skincare and shoes. Because it is all around the corner, I mean, if Bridget can have a baby, then we sure as hell can.
Marijke Thoen
Ebb and Flow
