MY STORY: MIRACLE BABY

On her 40th birthday, Carol Poolton woke up to her biological clock ticking loudly in her ear

Through my fertile years I was too afraid to create a child. The responsibility of motherhood seemed far too daunting. Babies were being born all around me, but I just could not take that step; I marvelled at how easily other women could. I will do it, I promised myself, when the time is right; when the man is perfect.

When Mr Almost Perfect eventually showed up, I imagined (with some misgivings) that a pregnancy would soon follow. The fact that it didn’t should have sounded a warning bell. Maybe our biorhythms were out of sync, our charts misaligned, or our hearts just not in it, but the relationship didn’t survive and a baby fell off the agenda. Again. That momentous and irreversible decision to bring a child into the world could once again be pushed into the future – where it belonged. I hadn’t been quite ready anyway, I told myself, and there was still time.

My 40th birthday took me by surprise. I awoke from a strange dream of a solemn-faced, blue-eyed, blond boy trying to call me from a red telephone box. Maybe this was the child I had chosen not to have, I thought. Gripped by the cold, implacable reality of being alone forever, I saw a barren future of never being a mother, of never being a family, of being incomplete.

The prospect of childlessness was suddenly so unbearable that I couldn’t accept it. I was galvanised

into action. Menopause was looming on the horizon, hovering over my future, waiting to tell me that my number was up. I had no idea that the desire for a child could become an obsession; a deep and burning need that takes over one’s whole being. Nothing else will do. No high-flying job, no financial success, no exciting man can fill that space. It’s a primal urge that demands fulfilment. For years it was calling for my attention and now that call was deafening. There was no time to waste.

Undeterred by my single status, I set about finding the man, a sperm donor. By now, compatibility, shared values or mutual attraction were irrelevant. The clock was ticking, the race was on. The relationship that would give me a baby had to be fast-tracked. I had criteria of course, a checklist against which to measure ideal father qualities. No suitable mate presented himself; like babies, they don’t arrive on demand. But never mind. I had a Plan B.

Artificial insemination was up next. Choosing a designer baby with the right colour eyes, hair, height and promising genes – why not? Numerous visits to the fertility clinic, egg-boosters, hormone injections and all the palaver that go with the unnatural creation of a child were all in vain. Nature refused to play along. Clearly my child did not want to arrive this way; did not want an anonymous father.

It seemed the odds were against it, anyway. My chances of conceiving were apparently not only slim, but almost non-existent. My originally bountiful supply of eggs was now so low that I was given only a 1-3% chance of conceiving, even with intervention. And with every year that passed, these odds would worsen.

This dismal prognosis fuelled my anguish, already in high gear. Because I have always felt much younger than my biological age, I had naively assumed that my body would align itself accordingly – as if fertility were under my control. As if the fact that other women had babies in their forties meant that I could, too. As if the choice were mine.

But the flicker of hope, while dimming rapidly, was not yet extinguished – I couldn’t give up.

Next, the adoption process. An emotional year of persuading cynical counsellors that I would make an exemplary mother – to anybody’s child. After months of interviews, house visits and endless questions, they remained unconvinced. While my desperation must have been obvious, it was not compelling enough, in their view. No doubt they had seen many such cases and probably thought I would get over it, would change my mind.

Grieving at my irrevocably childless state, I tried to make peace with my life as it was. But peace would not come. My incompleteness gnawed. A deep, sad yearning for something out of my reach was ever-present. To me it felt like bereavement – the unbearable loss of something I had never had and now, never would. A personal tragedy to haunt me forever. Because it was my fault; I had squandered my opportunities and

wasted all that time.

And then the coincidence, the serendipity, the miracle.

On a business trip to Europe,

I ran into my ex-husband. It was completely unexpected – neither of us knew we would be in the same country at the same time. A brief but amorous interlude followed. If there were any subconscious desire for fusion to occur, I was certainly not aware of it. Our attempts to have a child while we were married, and younger, had been fruitless. And of course, those odds...

While the flame between us had not completely died, our compatibility had. Twentyfour hours together reminded us of the reasons we had parted in the first place. This door is firmly closed, I thought, and that’s the end of that.

But that was not the end, it was the beginning. Our son Jesse had been conceived. Wonder of wonders…

I floated on a cloud of bliss for the next eight months. The obligatory older-mum tests didn’t worry me at all. I knew the universe was on my side; how could it not be? The impossible had been made possible. Life had not deserted me.

He arrived, perfect in every way. On the day, he looked like no one in particular, as babies do – all scrunched-up face and chubby little limbs. A warm bundle in a hospital blanket. But now he is the boy who called me from the phone box. Exactly that boy. I recognise him from my dream.

He was calling to tell me not to be afraid, that he was on his way.

I had naively assumed that my body would align itself accordingly – as if fertility were under my control. As if the fact that other women had babies in their forties meant that I could, too.