One of the great reliefs of middle age is not having to give any thought to fertility. That particular hustle, which can blow a hole through a woman’s 30s and early 40s – and even, thanks to the lottery-ticket promise of tiny advances in IVF, later – is mostly in the rear-view mirror by the time 50 rolls around, and what was once all-encompassing fades. For many women, I think, the predominant feeling looking back is: thank God that particular nightmare is over.
A report released this week by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) brings it all flooding back, pinging tiny depth charges off otherwise innocuous-sounding words – “cycle”, “storage”, even “window” gets a look-in – and yanking one back to a fraught and what seemed, at the time, never-ending period.
