'I never thought I'd freeze my eggs. But here I am, crying in my kitchen with a needle in my hand.'

For years, I told myself I didn't want kids. I said it often and with confidence — like it was a fun fact. "Hi, I'm Jess, I love overpriced skincare, I hate cardio, and I'm absolutely not having children."

It became part of my personality. Part feminism, part fear.

But if I'm being really honest, it wasn't so much a declaration as it was… a defence. A way to make peace with the fact that the man I was in love with didn't want them. A man I bent myself into an emotional pretzel for. A man I would've rather had than a baby.

Listen: Ask The Doc: IVF rounds, Pregnancy Feet & Why Your BO Bonds You With Baby. Post continues below.

I told myself I was too ambitious, too chaotic, too not-like-other-girls to want nappies and night feeds. I said it like it was empowerment — when really, it was sacrifice in 'Cool Girl' cosplay.

But somewhere in the middle of that relationship — still pretending to be breezy and unbothered — I felt it. A flicker. A quiet "what if" that curled up in my chest and refused to leave.

What if I do want a family one day?

What if I've spent so long fitting into someone else's idea of a future, that I forgot to build my own?

The relationship ended — in a predictably dramatic, emotional implosion — and I did what any woman would do after realising she'd outsourced her reproductive decision-making to a man who ghosted her in their own shared apartment: I spiralled.

Then I booked the tests.

AMH. Egg reserve. Hormones. Bloods. Just to see.

What could be the harm?

Spoiler: they were lower than they should be for my age. Not hopeless, just… urgent.

And just like that, that quiet whisper became a full-blown scream.

I cried. I cursed every man who told me he "wasn't ready." I mentally wrote an invoice to my twenties. I sobbed in the car, googling IVF clinics with one hand and texting my therapist with the other.

Watch: Mamamia's Well podcast discusses when to seek help with fertility concerns.

And then I entered the next circle of hell: the fertility waiting room.

Have you ever sat alone in an IVF waiting room while couples quietly hold hands beside you, eyes fixed on the floor like it's the only thing keeping them from completely falling apart? It's a very specific kind of heartbreak. 

And the worst part? I felt envy. Actual envy.

Even though I know they don't want to be there either. I know they're exhausted and hormonal and furious that "starting a family" has become a full-time job in science, debt and emotional resilience. Many of them have likely been at this for months — even years. They've had bad news days I can't yet fathom, heartbreak I haven't come close to earning.

But still — they had each other.

A hand to hold. A shoulder to cry on. Someone to drive them home and make shitty jokes about follicles. A body to crawl into bed with when the news is bad and the cramps are worse.

And I had… my notes app, a panic attack and the sudden realisation that my backup plan was me.

It was perhaps the loneliest I had ever felt. And then came the waves of anger.

I'm angry at myself. At the men I put first. At the world for dangling a family like it's this mystical thing we'll "just know" when we're ready for — while actively forgetting to mention that readiness doesn't necessarily mean ability.

I'm angry at the fact I spent my entire twenties convinced that if a man even breathed near my uterus, I'd be knocked up with triplets and a side of eternal shame. One rogue glance during ovulation? Pregnant. Sit on the same couch? Pregnant. Accidentally make eye contact during daylight hours? Boom. Baby in nine months. 

I'm angry at the anxiety and pain and desperate attempts I took to not accidentally grow a child while finishing a Communications degree and building my career because I believed it would be easy to fall pregnant. 

Guess what? It's not.

I'm angry that the biological clock isn't a metaphor. It's real. And it's loud. And no one really prepares you for the noise until it's already deafening. No one told me that one day, I'd suddenly feel like I'm trying to beat a buzzer on a game show I didn't even know I was playing.

So, here I am — staring down the barrel of 36, single and spending thousands of dollars to maybe freeze a few eggs that might result in a baby one day if all the stars align, and I win the IVF lottery.

It is not glamorous. It doesn't feel empowering. It's internal ultrasounds and being told "we'll just pop this in your vagina" while making small talk about the weather. It's waiting for blood results and hoping they come back with anything other than surprise, your body hates you again.

At the moment, my nights are spent standing in my kitchen. Crying. Hormonal. Exhausted beyond belief. Holding a needle in one hand and a protein bar in the other. 

And maybe that's what hurts the most — not the injections or the bloating or the hormonal chaos — but the fact that even at my most vulnerable, I'm still performing strength. Still saying "I've got this" with a sharps bin in my bathroom and no one to hold my hand but me.

But I'm doing it. Because no one else is going to do it for me.

I'm viewing this whole process as a wildly expensive, deeply emotional, hormone-fuelled act of self-love. A way of saying: I don't know what the future holds, but I refuse to let fear, or men, or the timeline society handed me dictate my options.

I don't know if I'll ever use these eggs. I don't know if I'll ever become a mum. I still don't even really know if I want to.

But I do know this:

This is my body. My timeline. My little frozen maybe.

I might be bleeding money, leaking hormones, and whisper-sobbing into a heat pack because I'm struggling to stay awake past 8:15pm — but I'm also injecting myself with bravery, casting spells with progesterone and manifesting a future where I don't need a man to hand me my happy ending. 

Bibbidi-bobbidi-bitch, I've got this.

Feature image: Supplied.

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