I was desperate for a baby - now I'm glad it didn't work out

During the brief week when I was pregnant, I convinced myself I didn't want a baby after all and would have to abort it. But I lost it anyway. Photo / 123RF

What I wrote then

I have always wanted children and assumed that I would have my own as part of a couple. However, at 38, I had to face the fact that it might not happen. I ruled out IVF as it was costly and, at the time, not available on the UK's NHS to single women.

After six months of analysing and agonising, I made up my mind: I wanted to adopt. Over the following three years, that dream has been crushed by an extraordinary catalogue of incompetence, small-mindedness and prejudice that I have encountered from social workers.

One failed to turn up to a key appointment three times running. When I called to ask about the missed appointment, she would insist it was my mistake.

I happily provided bank statements, mortgage statements, pension records and copies of my passport, birth and exam certificates. I wasn't so happy when, time and time again, these were mislaid from my file.

She even lost my medical report a staggering eight times. Even when I sent it recorded delivery, the adoption department would deny having seen it. Eventually, in sheer frustration, I drove to the offices and hand-delivered it.

My social worker started to make chippy comments about my lifestyle, saying such things as: "How the other half live, eh?" when I told her I was going to New York for the weekend to mark a friend's 40th birthday.

She began to say that she thought I was an over-achiever who might put unrealistic pressures on a child.

Two days before I was finally due to go before the adoption panel, a social worker contacted me to say it would have to be delayed because they had forgotten to do any criminal record checks on my family.

Two months later, with nothing resolved, I phoned my social worker and said I no longer wished to proceed. I was devastated - but, after months of incompetence and social prejudice, I had no confidence in the system.

What I did next

Eleven years have passed and I still feel angry when I think of my attempts to adopt. I'd agonised over the decision and felt ready and committed when I was approved by my local authority.

As someone who wasn't looking to adopt a baby or a toddler, I was a godsend - the overwhelming majority of adopters want children under two years old.

I remember how upset I was when a social worker told me that children over eight are rarely wanted and, therefore, languish in the care system. Had my local authority been more competent, then, today, aged 53, I could be the mother of a teenager. Maybe that child, thanks to the love and support it wouldn't otherwise have had, would have flourished and be on the way to university. I'll never know.

In the original story, I stated that the idea of trying IVF as a single woman didn't appeal, and yet that's exactly what I went on to do. Between 2007 and 2011, I underwent three rounds of IVF, all with donor sperm and two with donor eggs. The first two cycles failed, the third worked briefly before dissolving in a "chemical pregnancy" (a very early miscarriage).

I had the treatment overseas, which cost me around $US30,000 when you factor in the cost of travel and the drugs required. The whole episode played havoc with my physical and mental health. The artificial hormones made me pile on weight and plunged my body into early menopause.

During the brief week when I was pregnant, I convinced myself I didn't want a baby after all and would have to abort it. But I lost it anyway.

Now in my 50s, I don't recognise that deranged, obsessed person. It's not just that I've made peace with being childless: I'm glad I am childless.

In recent years, I've undertaken three US road trips and I've bought a big house in Brighton that I'm renovating, none of which would have been possible with young children.

I understand the adoption process has been overhauled since my experience - it could hardly get any worse.

A friend recently said I had the room to foster children in my new house if I wanted to. I informed her, politely, that my spare bedroom was earmarked as a sophisticated dressing room thank you very much - not a child's bedroom.