A long-awaited Mother’s Day for Jessica Jordan
There’s no man in the picture but Jessica Jordan has not let that get in the way of her long-held dream to become a mum.
The 32-year-old Hamilton midwife is finally pregnant, due in a few months, and recently held a jubilant gender reveal party. She’s having a girl. But the naturally bubbly and upbeat mum-to-be’s journey has not been an easy one.
Jordan was 21 when she made a pact with herself that she would be a mum, no matter what.
‘‘Ever since I was little, I had lots and lots of dolls that I used to take good care of, and just wanted to be a mamma. I knew that is what I wanted to do in life.’’
She started to think about her fertility after surgeries for endometriosis. She also has a damaged fallopian tube from surgery as a baby.
‘‘When I had that first surgery, I thought to myself, if I am alone at any point and I want a baby, I’m just going to have a baby, because I’m not going to lose my fertility waiting for ‘the one’ to turn up, who might not ever turn up.’’
She initially decided if she’d not met the right partner by the age of 28, she would find a donor. Jordan continued on with life, bought a house in Hamilton, was loving her job and, at 27, realised she wasn’t ready so pushed it out to 30.
Three years ago she pushed play on her plan, she got on the waiting list for IVF, saw fertility specialists and went on the sperm donor waiting list.
She also joined online forums and advertised for a sperm donor.
‘‘Someone who I knew on the forum and knew outside in life, approached me and said he was happy to help me make my family.
‘‘He had had his own fertility journey and wanted to be able to give back.’’
After numerous home intrauterine inseminations failed, Jordan discovered her left fallopian tube was blocked.
‘‘So I started the IVF journey in November 2019. I got six eggs and one embryo and put it back fresh, and it didn’t stick.’’
It was then that Jordan’s family found out her father had terminal cancer. He died within two months of his diagnosis. Her second round of IVF was not long after but was also unsuccessful, and the third attempt ended in an early miscarriage. Jordan tried again in early December 2020 and this time it stuck.
‘‘The most wonderful, wonderful thing, and a year after I had started that first cycle, I was finally growing my long-awaited baby.’’
On Mother’s Day tomorrow, Jordan’s pregnancy will be 24 weeks and three days along. She is due at the end of August/early September.
She is grateful to have the full support of family, but says she’s copped some flak from people who are a bit conservative.
‘‘I am a Christian and I saw so many wonderful, beautiful, vibrant, passionate, skilled, single women wait for a man and never find a man and be too old to have kids. And I just wasn’t going to be one of those people, and this is the journey I have chosen to walk, so there have been two or three people who have been less supportive.’’
Jordan is open to the possibility of meeting someone further down the track.
She’s not ruling out having more children either, with two embryos on ice.
Jordan’s sperm donor will be in her daughter’s life as an uncle.