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

Rachel Pashley suffered a series of setbacks on the path to motherhood, before falling pregnant unexpectedly. Here, she reveals how she feels about being a midlife mom

- Rachel Pashley

As I write this, I have my 14-month-old daughter Lily draped across me. I have a 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 gladly take a bullet for, and for whom I feel a powerful, all-consuming love. But getting to this point wasn’t 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, is 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 grueling three years of my life.

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

R300k – and no baby