Fertility Choices for Single Women
This can be a difficult topic to approach, let alone navigate, and I want to acknowledge your strength and independence in even being on this page. At Solospheres, we champion the belief that every women has the power to make informed, autonomous decisions about her fertility journey.
Outlined below is a quick overview of the main 6 fertility choices for single women, followed by some information on my own timeline. If you’d like to dig deeper, please get in touch here:
The main 6 Fertility Choices for Single Women
Single men desiring children face more limited options, often needing a surrogate and donor eggs, which underscores the position you hold to make empowered choices about your reproductive future. Every path a single woman might take when it comes to motherhood – or not- is honoured and supported here. Any choice is valid as long as your have respected yourself by making a conscious decision.
Every fertility journey comes with its own set of challenges, twists and turns. Navigating treatments, managing societal expectations, confronting personal emotions to name but a few.
An active choice to wait and to trust
That you will meet someone and navigate your fertility journey together. Hold the vision, your values and desires, and try to cancel out the noise from a world that often pushes urgency. We encourage you to make this choice only ONCE, without second guessing your intuition, or thinking about your fertility again for a while.
An active choice to be child free
This could be a temporary, “I’m not ready” or a more permanent “Not for me”. Both are conscious acts of self leadership. If you are choosing a life that feels aligned, expansive and entirely your own, you are not “missing out”, whatever anyone else might try to tell you. Remember, this is sometimes a choice for partnered women as well!
Fertility Preservation
If you’re not ready to conceive now, but wish to keep your options open, egg freezing allows you to preserve your eggs for future use. There are different success rates of egg freezing vs embryo freezing (with a donor), so this is also a possibility.
Intrauterine Insemination (IUI)
Donor sperm is placed directly into your uterus during ovulation. (mimicking what would happen with a parnet if you will) This is not too invasive and a first step for many women looking to become SMBC (Single Mums By Choice)
Invitro Fertilisation (IVF)
A biology refresher might be needed here! Drugs stimulate all follicles in a cycle to mature into eggs. (Usually just one matures.) These are retrieved from your ovaries and fertilized with donor sperm in a lab. Embryologists monitor the cells, and if suitable, the resulting blastocyst/embryo is transferred back to your uterus, where it hopefully implants and results in pregnancy. IVF may also include egg donation.
Strategic Exploration without pressure
Let’s normalise pausing to gather information, rather than being a slave to your biological clock. Researching, testing and waiting to decide are also choices. Sometimes the most empowered move is to gather facts and give yourself space to breath. Consider booking a Fertility MOT, investigating your emotional readiness, clinic options, or even just thinking about your own timelines.
My Fertility Journey
Research, Fertility MOT, Choosing Clinic & Egg Freezing
This time was a huge learning curve
COVID Lockdowns
Fertility clinics were closed or operating with strict COVID guidelines
Change of Plan – Embryo Freezing, Choosing Donor, New Fertility Consultant, 1st Implantation Failure
Now 37, rather than 35, it felt like the stakes had changed.
Changing donor, 2nd Implantation Failure, considering surrogacy, switch to freeze all cycles, changing fertility consultant again…
Many many twists and turns in the process. This year was possibly the hardest
Move to frozen transfer – Success, Pregnancy & Birth
The beginning of a whole different journey…
There is no one size fits all version when it comes to single women fertility choices. Whether you are freezing your eggs, pursuing solo motherhood, embracing a child free life, or simply taking your time to decide, Solospheres is your space to explore these possibilities with clarity and without pressure.
We are a trauma informed environment, where you can explore options without judgement. Our mission is to support and guide you in your decisions to pursue treatment or not.
Making choices on your terms, not from a place of fear or societal pressure. Whether you move forward soon, or take another year to decide, Solospheres is a calm and informed base camp, to learn, reflect and decide. Then you take your next steps when you are ready.
You are not alone on this journey, help is available to navigate each step with self compassion and expertise. Every fertility journey is personal and unique, but Solospheres is committed to providing the support and resources needed to enable all fertility choices for single women, however they look for you.
Services
Whether it is virtually holding your hand real time in the clinic waiting room, or just helping you get your thinking clear, Solospheres offers clarity, confidence and conscious support.
Behind the scenes science, charts, numbers, financial impact… I can help demystify the process and your decisions step by step
Self Led Course
Exercises and worksheets to help you prepare and complete fertility treatments
1:1 Support
1 off, 3 or 6 month packages available as you navigate your fertility journey
Donor Selection
Get clear on what matters to you and your family the most
Resources
These websites can also be a good place to start when thinking about fertility choices for single women