‘I can’t believe you’re about to have your third baby and I haven’t even had my first,” said an old girlfriend wistfully over supper the other night. This was not the first time I’d noticed this, although no one really talks about it, that women, when they enter their mid-to-late 30s, suddenly become very starkly divided between those who have children and those who don’t, with the ones who don’t suddenly facing the very real prospect of remaining that way for ever.
We agreed that she mustn’t worry and that, aged 35, she still had some time to find the right man, get married and have babies. My mother, I pointed out, met my father at 36 and had me at 37. This friend’s mother had started similarly late, having her first baby at 38 and her second at 40. Indeed, I have a cousin who had her first at 40 and her second at 46. It worked out for them and it most probably will for her too if that’s what she really wants, we agreed.
