‘It’s easier without a partner’: the single women undergoing fertility treatment

IIt was Covid that gave Amy, 45, the final push to undergo fertility treatment herself. “I had been thinking about it for a while, and then with Covid I thought, ‘I’m never going to meet anyone.’ And I didn’t really want to be that woman who says, “Hey, we went on one internet date. Let’s have a baby!”

Amy was lucky with her first embryo transfer and is now the mother of a three-year-old. “I feel very blessed,” she said.

Undergoing IVF as a single woman was easier than she feared. “I think it’s probably a bit easier without a partner. I had no one to take the hormones or anything like that. “I just kept injecting myself in the stomach,” she said.

“In contrast, I would say that probably half of the people I know who have undergone IVF have subsequently broken up.”

When her daughter was a baby, Amy occasionally worried about the possible consequences of her choice. “I worried if she would mind not having a father,” she said. “But now I think it’s good not to rush into a relationship that might not have worked for that reason.”

Amy even felt liberated by her ability to tell people she had done it herself. “People asked, ‘Did he leave you – did you leave him?’ and it felt good to be able to say, ‘No, I did it alone!’”

The number of single British women undergoing fertility treatment has more than tripled in the past decade, according to data released by the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority on Tuesday.

There were 4,800 unpartnered women undergoing treatment with in vitro fertilization (IVF) or donor insemination (DI) in 2022, an increase of 243% compared to the 1,400 single women receiving fertility treatment in 2012. The number of women in same-sex groups The number of couples undergoing fertility treatment has also more than doubled.

Being gay made the choice easier for Emma Brockes, who had a ‘tenuous relationship’ with her partner, who agreed they should not have children together. Now 48 and the mother of nine-year-old twins, Brockes is “excited” that more and more single women are undergoing fertility treatment.

“I’m glad it’s becoming more and more common, because I think the biggest prohibition is shame and feeling like it comes second, and I think not doing something for that reason is almost always the wrong choice,” she said .

Brockes, a Guardian columnist from New York, said the decision to undergo fertility treatment is easier for lesbians. “We’re always going to need help no matter what, so it doesn’t feel unnatural,” she said — although going through the process alone, she admitted, isn’t for everyone.

“I was fine with it,” she said. “I had a lot of people who would come with me to all my appointments, but I wanted to do it alone. It just depends on where you are on the sentimentality spectrum, and it helped me do it myself.”

Jennifer, 45, gave herself another year before taking the plunge.

“I want a husband and a family, but I quit a little late because of work and moving,” she said. “Dating at this age is almost impossible and last year I was diagnosed with breast cancer, which focused my thoughts on what I really wanted.”

Jennifer earned a master’s degree two years ago so she could change her career to something better paid. “If I’m going to do this on my own, not only do I have to be able to afford the treatment, but also because I’m a single mother,” she said.

The decision, she said, is not exactly empowering. “I would say it’s liberating,” she said. “I am grateful for the social and scientific achievements that give single women the freedom to have children through IVF, but it is not empowering because I would much rather do this with the love of my life.”

For Helen, a 40-year-old civil servant in Scotland, doing IVF on her own was painful. “Over the past year I have been doing IVF to try to have a child on my own after experiencing domestic violence,” she said. “I wanted a second child and decided I would rather do it alone than rush into a relationship or take the risk of co-parenting with someone.

“Unfortunately the treatment failed and I can no longer afford further treatment or continue to endure the emotional burden of fertility treatment alone. I wish I had understood at 30 that my reproductive choices would have been much better if I had frozen my eggs at that age. More women should be aware that the ability to undergo IVF on their own does not mean it will work.”