Thinking About Solo Motherhood? You Don't Need to Have the Answer Yet
The question doesn't usually arrive all at once.
There is a point in considering solo motherhood where it can feel like every thought needs to end with a decision.
Am I doing this?
Am I not doing this?
When do I need to decide?
What if I get it wrong?
And when the stakes feel this big, it's easy to assume the answer should arrive as some enormous moment of certainty. A lightning bolt. A clear, unambiguous yes.
For most women, it doesn't work like that.
Sometimes the most useful first step is giving yourself permission to stop trying to make the final decision — and start exploring the actual question instead.
Because there is a lot of space between I've started wondering about this and I am booking treatment tomorrow. You are allowed to be in that space for as long as you need to be.
Considering is a stage of its own
One of the things I wish more women understood about this path is that considering solo motherhood is not simply the waiting room before becoming a solo mum.
It is a legitimate stage of the journey.
You are allowed to investigate it properly.
You are allowed to learn what donor conception actually involves. You are allowed to look at the finances. You are allowed to explore fertility treatment. You are allowed to think about what your future family could look like, and to picture yourself in it.
And after all of that, you are still allowed to decide yes, not yet, or no.
Researching solo motherhood does not commit you to solo motherhood. It gives you more information with which to make the decision. That's it.
The women who make this decision with the most clarity are almost always the ones who gave themselves real time and space to think — not the ones who rushed to a conclusion so they could stop feeling uncertain.
Start with your actual life, not an imaginary version of it
When women first start thinking about becoming a solo mum, it's very easy to jump straight to the logistics.
How much does IVF cost?
Which clinic should I use?
Which donor type?
Who would be my birth partner?
Those questions matter. But before you start constructing the entire future, it helps to look at the life you already have.
What is making you think about solo motherhood now?
Is it because you've always wanted to be a mother and you no longer want that decision to depend on meeting the right person?
Have you recently left a relationship?
Are you watching your fertility timeline more closely?
Have you realised that partnership and motherhood might actually be two separate decisions for you?
There isn't one correct reason to consider becoming a solo mum. But understanding your reason matters. Because it gives you somewhere much more useful to start than simply asking yourself: "Could I do this on my own?"
"Could I cope?" probably isn't the whole question
This is one of the most common fears I hear.
Could I actually manage everything on my own?
And yes — solo motherhood involves responsibility. There isn't another parent automatically taking over when you're exhausted, sick, or just desperately need ten minutes. That's real.
But deciding whether solo motherhood is right for you isn't a test of whether you're capable of doing hard things. It's also about what kind of life you want to build.
What support could you create?
Who are your people?
What would need to change financially?
What parts of motherhood matter most to you?
And perhaps most importantly: what fears are genuinely practical — and what fears come from having spent your whole life being told that a family is supposed to start with a couple?
Those are different questions. They have different answers. It's worth knowing which ones are actually yours.
You don't have to solve your child's entire future before you've even started
One of the things that can happen quickly is that women start trying to answer every possible question their future child might one day have.
How will they feel about being donor conceived?
What if they want siblings?
What will I tell them about their donor?
What happens when they're a teenager?
These are genuinely important considerations, particularly where donor conception is involved.
But you do not need to predict the personality, feelings and life experience of a child who does not yet exist in order to make a thoughtful decision.
What you can do is educate yourself. You can listen to donor-conceived adults. You can learn about different donor arrangements. You can understand why early disclosure matters and think about how you'd tell your child their story from the beginning.
Thoughtful parenting does not require clairvoyance.
Give yourself somewhere to put all of this
One of the reasons this stage becomes so overwhelming is that everything lives in your head at once.
Fertility. Money. Donors. Childcare. Family reactions. Career. Birth. Support. What happens if something happens to me. And somewhere underneath all of it: Do I actually want this?
You are not supposed to solve those questions simultaneously. You need a way of pulling them apart and working through them one at a time.
That's exactly why I created the free Solo Motherhood Decision Starter.
It isn't designed to convince you to become a solo mum. It isn't a checklist that ends in a giant YES. It's simply a way of looking at this decision through your own values, circumstances, fears and hopes — rather than trying to make one enormous life choice in your head at 2am.
Your answer might be yes. It might be not yet. It might be no.
All three are legitimate outcomes. The goal isn't to get to solo motherhood. The goal is to get to a decision that feels like yours.
Pop your details in below and I'll send it straight to your inbox.
→ Get the free Decision Starter
If you want to go deeper
The Decision Starter is the beginning. The Considering Solo Motherhood program is what's on the other side of it — a structured, supported way to work through this decision properly, with women who are asking the same questions, and the time and space to actually get somewhere.
👉 Find out more about the Considering Solo Motherhood program →
And if you're not ready for any of that yet — that's fine too. Start with the blog. Wherever you are is the right place to begin.