A tarot reading had made a prediction that would change the course of my life. But could it possibly come true?
As I picked through a pile of clothes, something caught my eye.
‘I’ll take these, please,’ I said, holding up a pair of maternity dungarees. ‘They’re just perfect.’
I was at a sale, looking for bits and bobs that I could add to my stockpile of maternity and baby things.
People must have thought I was a very organised mum-to-be.
But I wasn’t. In fact, I wasn’t even pregnant.
But I longed for a baby. Even though I was only in my mid-20s, I was ready to be a mum. I had even created a vision board of my dream life which showed me with two little children.
But they were just photos from a magazine.
The reality was that I had been trying for a baby for months without success.
Eventually, I had tests and discovered why.
‘I’m afraid you have a very low egg reserve,’ the doctor explained.
He suggested that to fall pregnant I’d need someone to donate their eggs to me.
It was a blow. I’d always imagined my children would have my eyes and curls and my wide smile.
Years went by and my relationship came to an end with me still no closer to becoming a mother.
Then one day, a friend at the hospital where I worked made a suggestion.
‘Why don’t I do a tarot reading for you?’ she said.
She thought it could put my mind at rest about the future. ‘I’m not sure…’ I replied. I felt a bit sceptical about it but another colleague talked me round and we all met up at a café for the reading.
We sat around a small table ‘Why don’t I do a tarot reading?’
and the cards were placed in front of me.
I touched the ones I was drawn to and my colleague turned them over.
She studied them and then she turned to me.
‘I do see you becoming a mother,’ she said, ‘but it will take time and it won’t happen in the way you expect.’
It was a warning that the path to motherhood was going to be tricky but, still, I left the café feeling reassured.
However, the years marched on and I remained childless.
Trouble was, I never met the right man and never found the courage to go it alone.
Then, when I was 44, I met someone on a dating app.
With time running out, I decided to be upfront and told him: ‘I want to have children.’
He was keen too but, rather than me getting pregnant, he wanted to adopt.
‘There are enough kids in the world,’ he told me.
But one day, I spotted an interesting article in a fertility magazine about embryo donation.
I’d never heard of it before, but it was a way for parents who’d had successful fertility treatment to help others less fortunate by dona
