‘Children Are Like Buses – You Wait For Ages, Then Three Come Along At Once!'

Author Jo Thomas was getting used to being childless when she found herself a mom to three under the age of three. She shares her journey...

- Jo Thomas

I can remember the day my biological clock started ticking. It was over a game of cards; sevens, I seem to recall. I was 28, and my husband and I were on a last-minute package holiday in Portugal. We’d met a lovely family – mom, dad, two kids – and ended up spending a lot of time with them. One evening, we were all playing cards in their apartment, spaghetti bolognaise bubbling away on the hob. Swimsuits were drying on the balcony, the place smelling of hot showers, freshly washed hair, and clean pyjamas. I suddenly realised, I’d like this. I wanted to be cooking spag bol for a family of my own.

Two years later, I still wasn’t pregnant and sought help through our GP. She suggested a visit to a fertility clinic. Years of charting dates, taking temperatures, and injections followed as we went through cycles of AI. It wasn’t a happy period. My husband was often away working, so I’d drive to the clinic with a test tube of sperm in my cleavage to keep it warm. I’d often wonder, what if I had an accident right now; never mind is she wearing her best underwear, what on earth is she doing with that test tube in her bra?

Christmases came and went, and I began to feel there was a whole club I wasn’t invited to; areas in shops I was excluded from full of toys and fun. Friends started to join that club and life began to feel like one big party I was watching from the window outside.