"When she’s older, I’ll tell her exactly how she came into the world – how she was chosen, fought for and loved long before she arrived." Photo / 123rf
After spending $92,000 on IVF and suffering through multiple miscarriages, lost babies and heartbreak, I finally got my happy ending.
I’m definitely what you’d call one of life’s planners: determined, headstrong and rarely taking no for an answer. Aged 10, I owned a Filofax, and in my 20s I went into PR where making things happen – whether lining up Tony Blair for an MTV campaign or planning a secret Coldplay gig – became my job. And I was good at it; by 26 I’d bought a flat in Notting Hill, by 30 I launched my own company.
So long as I have a plan of action, nothing daunts me. Ultimately, this got me where I am now, aged 42, a mother of two who’s doing it solo – by choice.
Admittedly, not everything in life has gone to plan. Breaking up with my boyfriend when I was 35, weeks after I’d given birth to my first baby, wasn’t ideal. I was pregnant three months after meeting him – a charming commercial director – on a dating app. It wasn’t planned, but we were happy.
I’d recently returned to London, after stints working in Dubai and Sydney, and the boyfriend moved in with me. But by the time Freddy was born in September 2018, the arguments were heated. By the new year, we’d separated.
Finding myself a single mum was painful. As a teenager, boarding at Hurtwood House, my well-to-do girlfriends and I dreamed about our future lives. I’d always imagined myself married with three kids by my mid-30s.
I was originally one of three myself. My lawyer parents had my brother and sister and me while living in Kew, then after their divorce, Mum moved to Belgravia and Dad to Wimbledon village. Both of them remarried and had more children, so in total there were nine of us kids. Perhaps unusually, we’re all an incredibly close, happy, blended family.
I’d always dreamed I’d be married and living in a big house with my husband and a noisy gaggle of children. My brother has six children. It was hard not to feel I’d missed out.
So while the rational part of my brain said “you’re single, mid-30s – this might be your lot”, I had this ferocious baby hunger that just wasn’t going anywhere.
I know how fortunate I am that my mum – a very chic, sprightly 74-year-old – rallied along with my sister and sister-in-law to form an incredible support team. Over dinner one night at The Ivy, when Freddy was still a toddler, I admitted how broody I was. Mum looked at me, then shrugged, and said: “Why don’t you just do it on your own, Holly?”
My mother granting me permission to sod the accepted convention was just the encouragement I needed. Why not go it alone? After all, I had supportive back-up, a successful business and the financial means. Solo parenting was something that had been thrust upon me, but that didn’t stop me from actively choosing it next time.
The more obvious option might have been to get dating and procreate the traditional way with a nice banker. But time was not on my side at 37, especially if I had to sift through multiple bland dates, being “wined and dined” in west London.
What’s more, the split from Freddy’s dad had been painfully drawn out, involving complicated childcare arrangements. I was cautious of getting hurt again. Doing it solo would be simpler (or so I then thought), giving me more control.
So in spring 2020, when Freddy was 18 months old, I booked an appointment at one of Harley Street’s best-known fertility clinics. After a raft of blood tests and scans to assess my fertility, I was declared “good to go”.
I underwent my first IUI (intrauterine insemination), aka the “turkey baster” method, that summer, with sperm from a Danish sperm bank – and it worked. On seeing the magical blue lines I rang Mum – “I’m pregnant!” I cried giddily.
Tests at 11 weeks showed I was carrying a boy, a brother close in age for Freddy! At 12 weeks, I’d told friends and family. But at 14 weeks, a fetal cardiologist found my unborn son had a rare condition in which the left side of the heart was critically underdeveloped. “It’s no life for a child,” the doctor told me gently. By 15 weeks – and already starting to show – I was forced to terminate.
Utterly devastated as I was, I found myself planning. “We’ll try again in the new year,” I told the clinic over the phone. It was the only way I knew how to keep going.
What I didn’t know at the time was that over the next five years I would go on to endure multiple failed fertility treatments, from a so-called chemical pregnancy (gone almost before it had begun) to getting to the 12-week milestone and learning a heartbeat had stopped. After 10 attempts there was still no joy.
The whole process was exhausting, invasive and brutal – physically and emotionally.
Again, my amazing mum, sister and sister-in-law were there to come to scans and mop up my hysterical tears. Freddy was too young to understand what was happening, he always went to his dad on alternate weekends and at home I had an au pair, too. I always plastered on a bright smile and with my family’s help – and my own rigorous planning – I kept on top of everything.
Until, by the end of 2021, I was depleted. I’d burned through savings, leaned on my mother financially, and was emotionally battered. I put plans on hold and, through friends, even met a man and happened to get pregnant with him towards the end of 2022. But I ended up losing that baby too and spent that new year crying hysterically. The relationship fizzled out and I was back to square one.
By then I had spent tens of thousands of pounds – Monopoly money – and all it had brought me were multiple miscarriages, lost babies and heartbreak.
Friends told me they didn’t know how I kept going. But in some ways they weren’t surprised either; they know how stubborn I am.
By 2023 I was 39, yet wasn’t ready to quit. Fertility treatment is like gambling, you can’t stop. I didn’t care about whether my child would share my DNA, so through a Spanish clinic, using an egg donor in her 20s and an anonymous sperm donor, an embryo was created and transferred.
My pregnancy anxiety was hell. For each of the 16 scans family came with me in case of bad news. I was so worried about losing the baby that I wore baggy clothes to disguise my pregnancy from clients. I felt horribly guilty for not daring to sing to or cradle my bump – terrified to bond in case it ended in heartache.
Violet finally arrived in February 2025 in a planned caesarean with my sister-in-law Becky flying in from Spain to be by my side for the birth. Feeling her slippery body on my chest I was overwhelmed – not only with love, but with disbelief. After five years and 11 rounds of treatment, she was actually here.
We’ve had our fair share of drama (Violet spent 24 days in hospital as a baby after contracting HSV-1 which led to encephalitis – a whole other story), but she’s thriving now at 7 months old. Strangers in the street might coo “she has your eyes” and I just smile. But with everyone else I’m very open about my struggle to get her.
When she’s older, I’ll tell her exactly how she came into the world – how she was chosen, fought for and loved long before she arrived. I’ve spent around £40,000 ($92,000) on getting her, but what else would that have bought me? A better car? Some designer handbags? I know which I’d rather have.
Freddy is now 7 and knows that babies can be made with a mummy’s egg and a man’s sperm, but the man isn’t a proper daddy. Adorably he says, “I’ll be her daddy”.
“If people think I’m selfish for being so hell-bent on another child, I argue that at the end of the day I was the only person who suffered in the process.
“And no, I don’t think it’s irresponsible to raise a family without a father. In 2025, families come in all shapes and sizes.”
Since having Violet I’ve found myself talking to women who are where I had once been: lost in the maze of treatments and grief. I’d spend hours explaining everything from the best clinics to the hormone side effects. One friend said: “You should do this for a living.”
And so I did. Earlier this year I trained as a fertility coach. I don’t promise miracles, but I can offer guidance, honesty and the reassurance that they are not alone.
The three of us are a happy little family living in a four-bedroom house in leafy Earlsfield, south-west London. Life isn’t always easy juggling two children and now two businesses, but I’m not complaining. I know who needs to be where and when – from Freddy’s art, gardening and football clubs to Violet’s health appointments. I never drop the ball.
I haven’t had a meaningful relationship with a man since Freddy’s dad, and I’m not interested for now. But who knows what the future might bring? I’ve learned that sometimes the best things in life just can’t be planned.
As told to Susanna Galton