Baby Envy

At different points in my life, I wanted to be a nun, an actress, a maid, a teacher and a dolphin trainer. But in all points of my life, there is one thing I consistently wanted and that is to be a mother.

I am at a point in my life though when I think that might be the one thing I may never be. My weight, let's admit it, will probably never go down south of 100 kilos. I have diabetes, and a history of difficult pregnancies in the family. To top it all of, my boyfriend still doesn't have any plans of asking me to marry him soon, and my chances are getting slimmer by the literal second.

Sometimes I am angry at myself, for not connecting the dots about health and getting pregnant. Then I assuage myself by saying, I'm not financially ready anyway. This will be followed by a spate of resentment against my boyfriend for being so slow and contented while the one thing I want in life grows in jeopardy. It's not like I never discussed this with him. He's just too happy right now with his life to be moved to something so uncertain as marriage.

Now my friends are getting married, and having babies, and I feel the panic rising in me. I pretend like I don't care I'm being left behind, ashamed of even thinking there is such a thing as being left behind because supposedly, I'm a feminist. But truth is, I despair. And I approach the issue like I approach death, steeling myself for the inevitability of my childless future.

• If you’re under 25, you have an 86 percent chance of getting baby on board within a year of trying. From age 25 to 29, your chance of conception drops only slightly, to 78 percent. Overall, infertility rates are a mere 5 percent during this decade.
• Between ages 30 and 34, your likelihood dips a bit to 63 percent — still a very healthy possibility. At 35, you still have more than a 50 percent chance of getting pregnant naturally within a year’s time.