ONE of the things you realise when you grow up is that life is infinitely more complicated than you expected.

And one area where you might be taken by surprise by these complications is when you are forced to consider those which arise when it comes to having a family.

Once upon a time, you might have imagined that you’d grow up, get married and have a baby – or as many as you fancied.

But what you wouldn’t have considered is that you might not have met the right person, or that when you did find someone you wanted to settle down with, you tried to have children and, for whatever reason, it didn’t happen.

I know that the reason this issue is on my mind again is because of my age.
I am in my mid-to-late 30s, and trying to have a family is something which dominates the lives of many of the women around me.

Whilst at home in Northern Ireland recently, I met up with three very good friends, and the topic was a hot one.

One of the three has just got married and has discovered that she will need fertility treatment in order to even attempt to become pregnant.

Another is separated from her husband, and is facing a future where the family she dreamed of seems frighteningly far away.

And the third, despite being gorgeous and smart and independent, is single, and refuses to bemoan her status, even though she’d love to share her life with someone.

I was able to have frank chats with all three because, in the first instance, I know them all so well that we can admit our fears to one another and talk openly, and, in the second instance, because I know some of the pain of what they are going through.

When my husband and I were expecting our daughter, we had no idea of the trouble which lay ahead, and that the spinal and nerve issues created by carrying and delivering her would be permanent.

I constantly have to bat away queries about us ‘having any more’ in the manner that my colleague Helen wrote recently about constant queries about her marital status.

No one means any harm, but it’s often hard for people who have been able to have their children relatively easily and without any complications to understand the world of pain that can reside within this issue.

Those of us who have experienced the world where things go wrong are only too acutely aware that what is supposedly natural or simple can often prove to be exactly the opposite.