Fortysomething

From men to mid life crises, from Botox to Brazilians, from infertility to infidelity, every week Jacqui Leigh gives her personal take on being a fortysomething woman

Emergency contraception - a small price to pay!

By Jacqui Leigh on 18 Nov 2011 1 comment

Lunch hour. I am in the chemists to buy a morning after pill. Before they will sell it to me I have to stand to one side to wait for the pharmacist who will ask me a series of questions. I feel like an irresponsible teenage girl.

The pharmacist eventually comes over. He has a bad stammer and even though I know the questions before he’s asked them, I don’t want to seem rude by interrupting. It takes a while. I know the questions because I’ve had to buy one of these pills before. At £27 it’s a costly mistake but since a baby would probably cost me nearer to £100,000 it seems a bit of a bargain.

Why the hell do we have children? Every time I glance at the news online I am reminded that there are now seven billion people on the planet.

Recently I’ve been gripped by a blog written by a thirty something woman which is meant to be about food but it’s actually about her life post-baby, with a recipe dumped at the end. I’m fascinated because she’s honest or desperate enough to admit what a shitty time she has been having since having her baby. Here’s a good looking girl with a nice life, really interesting career and a successful husband. And then she has a kid and fucks the whole thing up. Her blog is funny and brutally honest, but at no point do you think that she’s exaggerating for comic effect. Having a child has clearly hit her like a sledgehammer, she’s exhausted, bored and depressed and you feel horrified, sympathetic and amused all at the same time because so much of it is true.

And you wonder, what exactly was she expecting?

Last night I’m looking at a discussion forum and reading about a woman, a single mum bringing up two small children who meets a divorced father of two. Since they are both struggling financially with four kids between them, they do the smart thing and decide immediately to make another baby, a joint baby because clearly those other kids don’t count. So she gets pregnant, runs herself ragged trying to work and look after her kids and often his kids too and then a couple of months later he decides she’s nagging him and it’s not working out. Only now there’s another whole new human being - a person - on its way. Seven billion and one.

One of my very closest friends, divorced with two school age kids, falls in love. There is not much money between them but they decide that because they love each other they will make another baby, even though they are already finding it tough to make ends meet. Since she is the main breadwinner she has to keep working full time as soon as the baby arrives. Meanwhile she says that all the little things you argue about when you are tired and have a small kid, all the things that test your relationship and stop you from having fun, are back again, just like the first time around...

I’m forty five now so I probably can’t get pregnant anyway but you can be sure I won’t take any risks, even if I have to wait an hour for the pharmacist to stammer out the questions. Dan feels the same way. He knows what it is like to care for another human being. Okay, it’s his sick mum, not a chubby cheeked little tot but as far as he’s concerned, that’s it, enough. The planet is too full and we want to lounge around and watch TV, not argue about whose turn it is.

I have a child who I love beyond words but, if I’m honest, like most people I wanted a baby for selfish reasons, to anchor my pointless existence, to have something to love and because I really wanted to experience the feeling of making a new life. Oh, and to make my parents happy. I had plenty of time on my hands when she was a baby, no great career to sacrifice and a difficult marriage, so she was the perfect project for me. Finally I had something to do.

A few years down the line, divorced and working, I’ve had a reality check and I thank God I only managed to have one easy going little girl. If I had another one now, really I don’t know how I would cope financially or time wise. But weirdly that doesn’t seem to stop most people.

Luckily there are a few who make sensible decisions in the world. Two nice women I know, a same sex couple who already have two girls, have just adopted a small boy. I don’t suppose it will all be plain sailing but I watched him whizzing down the road on his scooter on the way to his new school and he looked happy.