Adele Haywood, 38, is a solo mum by choice to Harriet, ten months. She lives in Barnsley, South Yorkshire.
On day eleven after my embryo transfer. This was my third attempt at IVF and I’d already spent £23,000 on becoming a mum so I didn’t want to get over-excited in case it hadn’t worked. I peed on the stick, left it in the bathroom and went to sit on the bed for three minutes. There was no point staring at it to see if it had changed. When I walked back in and saw the line, I was in disbelief. It felt surreal. It had finally worked.
Around ten of my closest friends! We’re all on a WhatsApp group sharing my IVF journey and I simply sent a picture of me with my positive pregnancy test. I think it was my friend Stacey who replied first saying: ‘I told you you were pregnant!’ We’d been out for dinner a couple of days earlier and she’d said I was glowing.
Telling my friends and then my parents later that day. I also put it on my personal Facebook page. I didn’t want to wait until the twelve week scan in case something went wrong. I used to photograph stillborn babies for parents so I can see it from both sides. I knew I’d need the support straight away if I lost this pregnancy so I announced it immediately.
It wasn’t really happening. I still can’t quite believe I’m finally a mum. I always knew that if I got to 35 and I wasn’t with a partner, I’d try to have one by myself. It was tough financially but I used savings and my parents helped with £4,000. I suppose it was at my 20 week scan that everything began to feel more real. I always thought that if I had a baby it would be a boy, but when I went for an early scan at seven weeks, I had a really strong feeling that it was a girl. And I was right. The sex was confirmed at 16 weeks.
Red apples. I was eating around ten a week. In the early part of the pregnancy I also craved sausage sandwiches but they had to be made without butter on the bread and with plenty of ketchup. Later, I craved foods with barbecue sauce.
Wondering what she’d look like when she was born. She’s a double donor baby meaning she’s the product of a donor egg and sperm. I’d used my own eggs in the first two rounds of IVF and it hadn’t worked so I decided to try donor eggs and it worked first time. My egg donor was blonde with blue eyes and my sperm donor was brown-haired and blue eyed so I was curious to see how she would turn out. I’m brown-haired and blue-eyed and now people ask how it’s possible that Harriet looks so much like me! One friend even said she thought my own eggs had been used!
I had terrible pregnancy anxiety, worrying if something would go wrong. I was under the mental health midwife and would often be in ‘fight or flight’ mode, constantly feeling anxious.
To cover every eventuality. I wanted a water birth and if that wasn’t possible, I wanted to be moving about. But I also planned that I might have an episiotomy or even a c-section. None of my plans happened.
Not how I imagined or wanted, despite my efforts to plan everything. I developed pre-eclampsia at 35 weeks and had to be induced. But after four days they decided to give me a c-section but then couldn’t get the spinal anaesthetic in. So I ended up having her via c-section under general anaesthetic. I was very upset about it as I felt like I hadn’t really ‘given birth’.
Is she ok? She was four hours old by the time I woke up from anaesthetic and I opened my eyes and she was asleep in a clear plastic cot next to the bed. My mum was there too and reassured me that everything was fine. She asked if I wanted to hold her and I said no because I felt too woozy. Even when I did hold her half an hour later, I didn’t feel that ‘amazing experience’ that many mums talk about. I felt a bit ‘out of it’ for a while.
My granddad Harry had passed away in 2020 but he knew all about my plans to get pregnant and even bought me my crib and bouncer. Her middle name is Rose, named after my mum’s best friend who also passed away.
Muslin cloths, I must have used dozens for everything from dribble to sick and snot. Even now I’m always grabbing a muslin.
The cot! Because she was so tiny when she was born, at only 5lbs 4oz, she was in the Moses basket for six months.
Lower my expectations. A friend said to me: ‘You can’t have a well kept house and a well kept baby so just focus on the baby’ and that’s what I’ve tried to do.
Sleep when the baby the sleeps. It doesn’t work like that. When people say it to me I respond with: ‘Yeah I’ll fold laundry when the baby folds laundry too!’
As told to Eimear O’Hagan.
