Babies are great aren’t they? Their cute gurgling smiles and the bumbling way they toddle about like miniature drunks on their way home from the pub. I’d always thought I’d have one when I was ‘ready’. Then I had a conversation with my gynaecologist that made my ovaries quiver with fear.

“You need to start thinking about having a baby” he said to me from behind the curtain, as if he was talking about a pension or investing in the property market. “Ha” I laughed “Yes, maybe one day.” Then he said it “You haven’t got much time.” I emerged, half expecting him to say “Ha ha, only joking, you’ve got years in you yet girl! I had you there though didn’t I?” But he didn’t. Deep down I knew what he was saying was true… I am 33 after all, not 23. “But I’ve only just really met the guy!” I said to him, incredulously. He simply shrugged his shoulders and said “So?”

Things were going well with DB (Doorstep Boy) but it’s just not the sort of thing you discuss after such a short time is it?

Bring up the baby thing with a boy (especially one you’re going out with) and you may well end up with a boyfriend-shaped hole in the nearest wall, followed swiftly by a speech that begins ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ and you know the rest…

Even amongst ‘the girls’ we’ll say things like ‘Ooh, I don’t know… I haven’t really thought about it.’ When secretly we’ve just been in Mothercare eyeing the miniature shoes and sniffing the baby powder.

It’s okay for boys, they can swan around till they’re in their seventies before thinking, ‘hang on, something’s missing, oh that’s right, Grandchildren.’

A woman in front of me on the escalator finally stilled my quivering ovaries. There she was with her little angel smiling proudly over her shoulder at me. I was just admiring his flowing golden locks and rosy cheeks, when all of a sudden he smirked evilly and yanked a huge handful of hair from her head, along with her earring. “Johnny!” she yelled, trying to keep him under control whilst not getting blood on her nice white blouse, but it was too late, there was the deafening yowl, and the wriggling and everyone turned to stare at the woman who from the sound of it must be murdering a baby. That, or sacrificing a goat.

When she turned around to apologise I was shocked to see how young she was. Despite the bags under her eyes, I could see she was only about 20 – still just a baby herself.

I smiled sympathetically, not just for the fact that her child had suddenly morphed into Chuckie, but for the fact that she had missed out on so much of her life. I’m no Carol Vorderman, but it didn’t take much to add up our age difference, whilst I’d been dancing my way through my youth, sipping cocktails with friends and forging a career for myself, she’d spent most of hers getting up for night feeds and changing nappies.

Any one of us could go out and get ourselves knocked up if we really wanted to. Find a man with suitable genes and all being well and good, hey presto – nine months later you have your very own bundle of joy. But, that’s not what most of us have in mind when it comes to Motherhood, is it?

I, for one, want the stable job, the perfect guy and hell, perhaps even a ring on my finger, before I think about producing a ‘mini me’. I have every faith that it’ll all fall into place and happen one day, there are no guarantees – but that’s what makes life so exciting, isn’t it? In the meantime, I intend to well and truly enjoy myself. In our haste to be Mums before it’s ‘too late’, we sometimes forget about all the good things in life that come before babies.

Surely there comes a time in every girl’s life when she’s allowed to believe, just for a moment, in fairy stories? A moment where against all the odds, the glass slipper fits. (I’m not talking about finally fitting into that pair of skinny jeans, but something far more magical than that). I call this the ‘Cinderella Moment’. And it happened to me…

With very little money, and memories of a series of disastrous flat shares in my backpack, I returned to the family home around this time last year, just in time to turn 32. “Just till you get on your feet” my dad said, even though my bank balance had the ability to invoke a stroke.

For a while, I basked in home cooking and endless cups of tea, but two months in, I began to wonder what life had in store for me. I hankered after the hustle and bustle of London, I hankered after my friends. I even hankered after some of the less undesirable flat mates I'd had (not flushing the loo made sense...for the environment). I'd always had visions of myself married with a small brood of delightful children by now. Instead I imagined myself in ten years’ time, sitting in my parents' lounge, sipping tea and pondering the merits of joining the Lady Masons. Was this really where my fairy story would end?

I moaned to my friend, Matt about my situation. “What if I end up getting knocked up by a local Leicester lad and I'm stuck here forever?” I panicked.

“That's not going to happen!” he assured me, but I wasn't so sure.

When it comes to love, my mum always told me “Don't go searching for him, he'll find you.” Right Mum, and he'll be riding a white charger too will he? was always my response.

Whilst I believed that fate could be a strange and magical creature; along with Goblins and the Fairy Godmother, the prodigal knight in shining armour was safely filed under M for Myth in my mind.

I eyed the village men in the local pub with trepidation, my mum's words echoing in my mind “Don't look for him, he'll find you”. With a choice of Big Dave or the landlord's second cousin with the lazy eye i wasn't sure i wanted to be 'found.'

Depressed, I sat in my old bedroom in my Mickey Mouse Pyjamas with the pen mark on the right boob and pondered my future. “I feel ill” I texted Matt. And I did. However much I relished the single life, I knew deep down there was something – or more to the point, someone, missing. “Well enough for a glass of wine?” he texted back (I'd only known him a short while, but he knew me so well).

I thought of him down there in London with an array of pubs to choose from. The only wine I had to hand came from a box in my parents' fridge.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door and I trudged over miserably to open it.

There was a man standing there on the doorstep with a bunch of flowers. I hadn't realised how good looking he was before and a smile lit up my face as suddenly it dawned on me.

“I had to find out” he said.

It was Matt.

Suddenly everything mum had said made perfect sense. Thanks Mum.