"I waited too long to have kids."

Bianca Dye found herself in a position she doesn’t want anyone else to face.

Okay, I don’t want to alarm anyone, but I really need to write this post. I know it’s annoying, and I don’t want to be a smart arse (I’m good at that, my friends tell me), but I wish someone had written something like THIS that I could have read when I was 33 and fabulous and trying to conquer the world. So here goes.

Stop taking ‘selfies’ and start having babies.

Now I hear the outrage. I can hear you "tsk tsk"-ing me as you read and say "Oh, what would she know?".

Well, I don't know a lot but I do know that what I, and many other women, are going through right now is its own little world of pain and hell and it’s called trying to have a baby and then having to resort to IVF.

It’s intense. THAT I do know. And if I can at least put some tiny-weeny warning bells in the heads of some ladies reading who really hadn't thought about it - then I’ll scream it from the rooftops.

Look, I'm aware in this amazing universe where we are bombarded & frankly overwhelmed by a zillion life choices on a daily basis, that having babies might be the last thing on your mind right now, as it was for me in my late 20s and early 30s.

Like many, I had a bad break up that left me sucking my thumb in the foetal position and I wondered if would ever have a family at all. Cue the sea change of moving from radio at Nova Sydney to i98fm Wollongong and not knowing anyone.

I had to meet a boy before I could even think about babies, and that isn't that easy for anyone, never mind when you're starting work at 4.30 every morning.

But what happens is that LIFE JUST PASSES YOU BY SO FAST. One minute you are 31 and thinking "I’m so fertile I could get pregnant sitting on a couch at the pub" and BOOM, if you're like me  you wake up at your 40th birthday sobbing  into the mirror "what happened to my youth and my child-bearing days"? I still had the child bearing hips - but not the eggs to match.

It’s a harsh part of the reality of having a vagina that we all face and I lament daily how unfair Mother Nature is. She built us to have babies young when we busy having fun, but unfortunately at 40 when I finally feel I have slightly got my act together to even trust myself alone with an infant my body says "actually I don't agree with you" and here I am on the IVF roller-coaster with thousands of other hopeful, brave (and now broke) women.

The reason this all came to a head for me is that I overheard a conversation where a friend said to another  "Oh so and so wants to settle down and get a job that's secure because she wants to start thinking about babies...." This person is single & just turned 33 and I found myself doing the internal maths:  "Okay, she still has to meet someone and then have some fun. You can’t just meet someone and say 'okay, let’s have babies', can you -  how to scare the crap out of any guy - then you start trying and it doesn't always happen right away. In fact it takes the average couple a minimum of 8 months of dedicated trying to fall pregnant.

So one minute you're 33, footloose, fancy-free and Tindering your way around town (which is awesome I’m sure, I wish they had that Tinder when I was 21!) but life is this VACUUM and you wake up and you’re not 33 any more, you're 37 and wondering where did the time go. It happens. It happened to me!

Here I am, and please, if you take anything from this ramble, please just think about babies. Just have that internal conversation or talk about it with your partner.

Please. For me?

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