>Tonight, at 11pm, one of TV scientist Dr Emily Grossman’s friends will call her. ‘Are we ready?’ she’ll ask. Emily will say she is, and start ‘stabbing my belly with hormone injections’.
>She will do so every night for two weeks, with her friend on the line for emotional support, until she is given a trigger injection to release ten or so eggs from her swollen ovaries. Thirty-six hours later, Emily will go to a clinic to have those eggs sucked out and placed in a freezer.
>Emily is one of a growing number of single, thirtysomething women choosing to put motherhood on ice in the hope of starting a family with Mr Right, if and when he shows up.
>‘I see my ovaries every other day in a scan during the second week of injections,’ says Emily. She’s just embarked upon her third cycle — three cycles are recommended to get the maximum number of healthy eggs. The total cost is close to £10,000.
>But Emily is not daft. In fact, she is one of the brightest thirtysomethings around, with a double first in natural sciences from Queens’ College, Cambridge and a PhD in cancer research from Manchester University. This week, she was named, with astronaut Tim Peake, as an honorary STEM ambassador, working to inspire Britain’s youth in science and tech.
>‘Ideally, I wouldn’t go back to them. Ideally, I’ll meet someone in the next few years, but . . .’ She shrugs. Emily has lived with two men, one during her 20s and a second lengthy relationship that ended last year. ‘In my 20s, I wasn’t thinking about marriage and babies. I was having lots of fun and was more focused on my career. I’d always had in the back of my mind that, one day, I would get married and have kids, but it wasn’t a primary objective.
Even smart women are having trouble finding suitable partners. Why are men abandoning their roles as fathers? If Western men stop procreating, then we will have to import more fertile refugees from the Middle East!
