Naomi Campbell, left, had her daughter at the age of 50; Charlotte Rowles had her daughter through IVF at 49.
OPINION:
I was rushing home from nursery pick up, banana peel in hand, when the new Naomi Campbell interview dropped on Monday afternoon.
Mothers of all ages have been debating and celebrating the 51-year-old's account of jetting round the world to fashion shows and shoots with her nine-month-old, who apparently "loves to travel" and "hardly ever cries".
I had my daughter through IVF at the age of 49, and while it's heartening to hear how much Campbell is loving the baby years, I can report that her interview – not to mention the photographs – bears little resemblance to the reality of becoming a parent at this age.
The idea of those long-haul flights frankly filled me with horror. The luxury scuba diving holidays I used to take in Egypt now seem a distant memory, and after two fairly disastrous attempts at flying solo with a toddler, I now settle for Legoland.
I've wanted a baby for as long as I can remember – which is not to say, as Campbell does, that "I always knew that one day I would be a mother".
When I hit my 40s, I was keenly aware of a window of opportunity closing. I'd been in love once and despite me willing them to feel the same way, it just didn't work out. My sister and her partner have three great kids who mean the world to me. I would have cosy, noisy, emotionally enriching visits and then cry on my journey home at the thought of the emptiness of my flat.
During my 40s, I actively considered my options. Fostering and adoption meetings left me brutally aware that being single and my age, I could be waiting years to become a parent. I started fertility treatment, and though in my heart of hearts I knew it wouldn't be successful, when it wasn't it felt like the end of everything. Depressed doesn't feel adequate as a description of how I felt.
At 49, knowing I was at the end of the road, I travelled overseas for fertility treatment using a donor egg and donor sperm. It took all my courage but I absolutely couldn't face the future without giving it one last try.
On the day of treatment, the doctor told me that only one embryo was viable for transfer. I pinned all my hopes on that tiny human form and waited five very tense days before I could do the test. Memorably, it was Mother's Day when I did. I took three tests (because surely the first two were wrong?) – all positive. I went from survival mode to living in that moment.
Pregnancy was tough on my middle-aged body. I had high blood pressure, a cancer scare, and the doctor ordered tests for my heart function. The baby arrived in a whirlwind in late November 2017. I had a caesarean on my doctor's advice and the room flooded with nurses when I lost two and a half pints of blood. As corny as it might sound, all that faded when she was born. It really was the proverbial thunderbolt of immediate love that I felt from the moment she was placed on my chest.
Campbell has said that her child is not adopted and is hers, but has not revealed how she was conceived or who the father is. But the little girl will no doubt grow up surrounded by an army of nannies and support.
Such luxuries are not available to me, and in the early months I immediately felt the loss of my mother. She died when I was in my 20s and sadly, by the time my baby arrived, so had my father. But I was on the receiving end of a massive amount of goodwill and friendship: midwives saw me through sleep deprivation and breastfeeding horrors; my sister organised a welcome party for the latest member of the family. In short, people all around me made me feel supported and loved and like I could do anything: a great message to defeat the sleep torture of my newborn.
My friends stepped up in ways I didn't fully expect. There's no getting away from the contrast in our lives – their children are going to university while I've been obsessing over potty training and going to Rhyme Time. But they know what a demanding stage this is, and arguably have more time and space to help out than they would have done as new mothers themselves.
Balancing work with single motherhood has proved to be as manic as the TV show Motherland suggests, and as my daughter has grown up, I've become more aware of the limits of my energy levels. I recruit friends' teenage children to come round and babysit, and see how their play is exciting and energetic and joyous in a way mine can't be. And I've had to make peace with the questions at the playground about whether she is my grandchild. I learnt to take it in my stride and explain through gritted teeth that she was my child and I waited too long to start a family.
The harder conversations will be with my daughter, when she becomes aware that I'm older than her friends' parents. I have started scripting those conversations in my mind. I look at her, and know that I have to squeeze as much as possible into this golden time we have together.
It makes me enormously sad to think I won't be here to see her have a family of her own. Recently, I have prepared a book for my daughter with photos of my parents and messages of things I think they might say to her. I suppose I did this in case I am gone by the time she is interested in knowing about her grandparents. And that alone makes my heart ache. I feel like I want to wrap her up in love and protect her from all the tough things that life brings. But in the absence of being able to do that, I am choosing to love her now and help her be self-reliant and getting my young nieces and nephews to swear they will look after her when I am gone.
The part of Campbell's interview I struggled over most was the line that she is encouraging her older friends to have babies too: "I'm telling them all, do it! Don't hesitate!"
I have no regrets, and like many parents, feel having a child is the best thing I've ever done, but would I tell other 50-year-olds to do it, especially those without a partner? I can't pretend it's been easy, nor that it's the way I'd have liked to do it.
The number of celebrities who have turned to IVF, surrogacy and adoption to have children in later life are challenging the old saying that money can't buy you happiness.
• Sex and the City star Sarah Jessica Parker was 44 when she had twins through a surrogate in 2009, while Nicole Kidman, who has spoken about her miscarriages and ectopic pregnancy in the past, had her fourth child, Faith Margaret, via surrogate aged 44.
• Danish actress Brigitte Nielson was determined to have her daughter via IVF despite doctors telling her she only had a 2.5 per cent chance of success. She got her prize, giving birth at age 55 to daughter Frida in June 2018.
• Pop star Janet Jackson has been more coy about her methods. In 2017 she gave birth to her son at 50 years old, though she never divulged to the media whether she had had any kind of fertility treatment.
• Actress Cameron Diaz reportedly used a surrogate to have her daughter Raddix in January 2020, at the age of 46, after trying IVF, acupuncture and supplements. Meanwhile, singer Natalie Imbruglia has been open about giving birth aged 44 via IVF and a sperm donor.
• Adoption has been the route for many celebrity mothers. Oscar-winning actress Sandra Bullock adopted her son, Louis, when she was 45 and her daughter, Laila, at the age of 50. Musician Sheryl Crow adopted her first son at 45 and her second son at 48. Madonna began adopting children at the age of 48 – first a son, David, then a daughter, Mercy, three years later. Aged 58 Madonna adopted twin daughters, Stella and Estere, from an orphanage in Malawi, bringing her total number of children to six.
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