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.