I came across Emma's story in a blog that mentioned my "Choosing Single Motherhood" book, and she gave me permission to excerpt her story here. You can read her full blog here.

Emma said that starting at the age of 16, until about age 30, she always told herself she would have children in "about ten years." There was a world to explore and fun to be had. So, although she always wanted to have children, she wasn't in a hurry. Then, when she was 31, she was diagnosed with PCOS.

"I actually got to see the cysts on an ultrasound scan and also got a talking to from the gynaecologist who told me that I might not be able to have children, that if I was going to try it I should do it soon, and that I needed to do all I could to prolong the little fertility that I had. I was devastated, but determined, and finally felt a sense of urgency with regard to child-bearing dreams.

I did have a partner at this time, but he was less than sympathetic. I'd like to be able to say that this was the first sign that the relationship wasn't good for me, and that I ended it then, but I'm afraid I can't. The first sign that the relationship wasn't good for me was probably before it even started, when his best friend advised me to steer clear, as he was the most selfish person he'd ever known. And no, for some insane reason it didn't end there either. I continued in that hideous relationship, gradually having more and more of my energy sucked away for a couple more years.

Ironically, I think it was partly my desire for children that kept me there. It was getting late, and I didn't rate my chances of finding someone else 'in time.' Finally it dawned on me that, as well as being a useless boyfriend, he would also be a useless dad. One time when he started ignoring me and saying he 'needed a break,' I gathered all my courage and left.

I took a couple of years out of the dating game to recover, and then started online dating. Cautiously at first, but before long I actually met people. Some great people (and some total disasters!). I made some lovely friends, I had coffee with people that I would never come across in my usual social circles. I even fell in love once. I never made it past date #3 though. The guy I fell in love with had had a vasectomy, having already fathered two beautiful girls. So, all in all it wasn't a very successful enterprise.

I guess I really started thinking about doing it by myself when I was about 35. My housemate had cooked dinner for us and some friends, a newly pregnant lesbian couple. We were talking about the idea of me having children and the continuous list of disasters that I'd had in terms of finding a man appropriate for the task. "You don't need a man Emma" they cheerily stated, "We can get you some sperm!"

...I told a few close friends about the dinner conversation, and one of them, an unintentional single mum, told me that she had recently met another single mum that had made the choice. She told me about this website, a forum for women who are thinking about or who have made the decision to become single mums. I joined and started chatting to other women at various stages of their journey.

A couple of books were recommended. The first one I read was the gloriously titled "No man? No problem! Knock Yourself Up" by Louise Sloan. This is a brilliantly written, humorous, frank and informative book with chapter titles such as "Oops, I forgot to have kids" and "Trysts with the turkey baster." It is engaging from start to finish. Mikki's note: here is my interview with Louise Sloan done some years ago.

Early in the first chapter is this quote from a woman that had made the choice. "It just seemed like the single guys my age were single for a reason...and I realized I wanted to be a mother more than I wanted to be a wife."

Reading that was an aha moment for me. It touched me deeply. It was so true of what I was feeling, yet until I read it I didn't recognize this issue in myself.

The second book I read was "Choosing Single Motherhood: The Thinking Woman's Guide." There is heaps of information and research on how kids from Choice families fare in the world. It was reassuring to read research showing that it is the quality of parenting, not the quantity of parents, that makes for well-balanced child. There are also interviews with Choice Kids that reinforce the idea that mums really can do it alone.

One of my favourite things about this book is that Mikki is supportive of the idea of using a known donor. ...If you are considering a known donor and want something to balance out the negativity, help you to make your own informed choice, and take action to minimize your risk in the donor situation, then this book will really help.

Once I read these books I decided. In fact, I couldn't think of anything that suited me more and was kicking myself that I hadn't thought of this earlier.

By the way, for the interested, I continued with my online dating with a sense of liberty that I hadn't had before. There was no pressure now to find the father of my children and I was free to see people as they really were, and make choices without the ticking time bomb. I was honest with men from the start. That put some of them off straight away, saving a whole lot of bother, but many were fine with it. Interestingly, when there was no longer the pressure to find a dad, I found that in many cases, it took even less time to decide that a relationship between us wouldn't work!"