What It's Really Like To Be A First-time Mum At 46

Rachel Pashley suffered a series of setback on the path to motherhood before finding herself unexpectedly pregnant. Here she reveals how she feels about being a midlife mum. 

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As I write this I have my six-month-old daughter Lily draped across me. I have cramp in my elbow and the slight delirium of too many late nights and early mornings, but I couldn’t be happier. Lily is the little being I never thought I’d see, the one I’d cheerfully take a bullet for and for whom I feel a powerful, all-consuming love. But getting to this point was far from easy: let me explain.

I work in advertising, which is code for regularly working 55-hour weeks. The sleep deprivation and constant demands, while the perfect rehearsal for motherhood, are lousy for getting knocked up, as I ruefully discovered. In fact, my journey to those two little blue lines would prove to be the most gruelling three years of my life.

If you believe the headlines, I had everything stacked against me. I was one of those selfish “career women” and I was in my forties, so the few eggs I had were probably a little stale. Therefore IVF or getting used to the idea of childlessness were my only options: advice cheerfully dispensed by my former GP, a tad insensitively if you ask me. At this point we’d been trying unsuccessfully for a year.

£20k – and no baby