'My whole life I was never sure I wanted kids. Then I turned 33 and started to panic.'

10 years ago I didn’t know if I wanted kids at all so you can imagine my surprise when all of a sudden I started freaking out about my biological clock.

The idea of wanting a baby of my own was a slow creep for me. I was happy working on my radio career and playing the part of the ‘cool aunty’ for most of my twenties despite all of my friends and siblings popping out kids. When I was months away from turning 30, I started to think seriously about wanting babies in my future. But I still had plenty of time, right? 

Fast forward three years, a disrupted five-year plan thanks to COVID and learning more about fertility, and the siren in my ovaries is well and truly going off.

Watch: Facts about fertility. Post continues below.

A year and a half ago my partner proposed and I could see my future setting itself up nicely; we would be engaged for a year, get married in an extravagant affair and then immediately start trying for a baby, I’d be a mum by 34.

Rona reared its ugly head not long after so we decided to wait before booking the date, given our families would need to travel for the big day. Towards the end of 2020, it felt a little safer to forward plan but of course, all the COVID postponements meant the wedding couldn’t be accommodated until mid-2022.

Change of plan, I’ll be a mum by 36… Enter fertility education.

Some of us go through life thinking once we decide we’re ‘ready’ all we have to do is have unprotected sex once and we're good to go. 

Maybe it’s good to think this in our teens and early twenties so we are more careful, but it’s not always so easy. For starters, a woman is only fertile for a couple of days per month which is a far smaller window than I thought, and from the age of 30 you can start saying goodbye to your healthy store of eggs. 

Listen to Before The Bump, Mamamia's fertility podcast. In this episode, fertility expert Dr. Sonya Jessup dispels myths around whether or not there's a 'perfect time' to get pregnant. Post continues after audio. 

With more than half of my close friends and family needing some form of medical help to fall pregnant and my past diagnosis of Polycystic Ovaries Syndrome, I realised that falling pregnant naturally and quickly was probably an unrealistic expectation.

So what do I do? Start trying for a baby before the wedding and potentially ruin the entire plan (and my wedding dress dreams)? Or continue with the future I had envisaged and cross my fingers I'll be a mum by 40?

I never thought I would be in this position and I’d like to think that learning more about fertility earlier in life would mean I’d be more prepared, but let’s be honest, until my ovaries started screaming I probably wouldn’t have listened anyway.

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Read some of our stories on fertility here:

• 'There's a test to help predict fertility. But at age 34, my GP wouldn't give it to me.' 
• Everything you want to know about the process of IVF, answered by a fertility specialist. 
• What you need to know about the 'egg timer' test if you're worried about your fertility. 

Feature image: Supplied.