Considering Solo Motherhood?
You may have been thinking about this for months. Maybe longer. Maybe the idea appeared after a relationship ended, maybe it has become louder as time has passed, or maybe you have simply reached a point where you are starting to separate the question of motherhood from the question of whether you have a partner.
Whatever brought you here, you do not need to have already decided that solo motherhood is what you want.
This is the stage where you get to explore what it would actually mean for you — emotionally, practically, financially, medically and for the child you may be considering creating — without anyone assuming that your answer should be yes.
If you are only just beginning, start with the free Decision Starter. If you already know you want to work through the decision in more depth, you can explore the full Considering Solo Motherhood program.
This usually starts with a lot more questions than answers.
For most women, considering solo motherhood does not begin with certainty. It begins with a thought that keeps coming back.
You might find yourself wondering how much longer you want to wait for a relationship to become the way you imagined you would have children. You might be happily single and realising that motherhood matters more to you than partnership. You might be coming out of a relationship and suddenly asking yourself whether you still want to become a mum even if the original plan has changed.
And once you start thinking about it seriously, the practical questions arrive very quickly.
Can I afford it? How do donors actually work? What happens if I need IVF? Am I running out of time? Who would support me? What would this mean for my future child? What would dating look like afterwards? Am I choosing something I genuinely want, or am I reacting to age, fear or pressure?
None of those questions mean you are overthinking it. They mean you are taking a significant life decision seriously.
The challenge is that most women are trying to answer all of them at once, from a mix of Google searches, fertility clinic websites, Facebook groups, podcasts, donor banks and other people’s opinions. That can give you plenty of information without necessarily helping you work out what any of it means for you.
You can explore this without committing to it.
One of the things I wish more women were told earlier is that considering solo motherhood does not mean you are already halfway to a fertility clinic.
You can learn about your fertility without booking treatment. You can understand donor options without choosing a donor. You can think about support, money, maternity leave and childcare without having made a final decision. You can imagine what this life might look like without promising yourself that it has to become your future.
That is what this stage is for.
It is about understanding enough of the emotional, practical and long-term realities that when you do make a decision, it feels informed and genuinely yours.
And that means looking beyond the obvious questions about getting pregnant. It also means thinking about donor conception from your future child’s perspective, the family structure you imagined you would have, what support really looks like when you are the only parent in the home, and what is actually important to you when you strip away everybody else’s expectations.
If you’re not sure where to begin, this is the easiest place to start.
The Could Solo Motherhood Be Right for Me? Decision Starter is a free guide designed to help you see which parts of the decision you have already thought through and where there may still be gaps.
It takes you through eight areas, including what you actually want, fertility and timing, treatment and clinics, donor options, donor conception and your future child, money, support and the family structure you once imagined.
It is not a quiz and it is not going to spit out an answer at the end telling you whether you should become a solo mum.
The point is simply to help you get a clearer picture of where you are right now.
You may realise that you have spent months researching fertility but barely thought about donor conception. You may discover that the practical side feels manageable, but the emotional side still feels raw. Or you may simply find that there are areas you had not realised you needed to think about yet.
That is useful information in itself.
Free | Instant download
If you’re ready to go deeper than another article or podcast.
There is a point where another article, podcast or late-night Google search stops being enough.
Considering Solo Motherhood is the full decision-making program for women who want to understand what this path could actually involve before deciding what they want to do.
Across eight comprehensive modules, we cover the emotional side of the decision, donor options, the implications of donor conception, fertility and age, IUI and IVF, choosing a clinic, finances, support networks, practical planning and what life as a solo mum could realistically look like.
There are two ways to do it.
On Demand — A$297 gives you the complete course, workbooks and resources to work through privately and at your own pace.
Guided — A$599 standard price includes everything in On Demand, plus a structured 10-week roadmap, live facilitated calls and a private cohort of women who are also still working out what they want.
The current Founding Beta is A$297, so for this first cohort the Guided experience is the same price as On Demand.
You might not be ready for a program yet. That is completely fine.
Sometimes the next useful thing is simply hearing from someone who has been where you are, or getting a clearer understanding of one specific part of the decision.
Real solo motherhood stories
Hear from women who once sat with the same questions you are asking now.
Donor-conceived perspectives
Listen to donor-conceived adults talk about the things they wish prospective parents understood before treatment begins.
Fertility and treatment
Learn more about fertility testing, IUI, IVF and how treatment pathways can differ before you decide whether any of them are right for you.
You do not need to consume everything. Start with the question that feels most relevant to you now.
Sometimes you just need to say it out loud.
There are moments when more information is not the thing you need most.
You might already know the facts. You might have read all the articles. You might understand the options perfectly well and still feel completely stuck.
A Sounding Board session gives you 60 minutes with me to talk through whatever is going around in your head — the fears, the practical questions, the relationship stuff, the “what ifs”, the parts you have not felt comfortable saying to anyone else.
I am not there to tell you what you should do. The point is to give you somewhere to untangle it properly and work out what would actually be useful next.
You do not need to be talked into solo motherhood.
I love being a solo mum, and I know many women who would make the same choice again in a heartbeat. But that does not mean it is automatically the right path for every woman who lands on this website.
There can be grief alongside excitement. There can be fear alongside relief. You may feel empowered by the idea one day and deeply uncertain the next.
That does not make you flaky or confused. It makes you human.
You may decide that this is exactly what you want. You may decide that you need more time. You may decide that it is not for you at all.
All of those are legitimate outcomes.
The role of Solo Mum Society at this stage is not to convince you. It is to give you better information, different perspectives and practical support so that whatever you decide comes from a place of understanding rather than panic, pressure or someone else’s timeline.
If you are ready to learn more about your fertility.
Some women arrive here already knowing that they want more information about their fertility, even if they have not yet made a final decision about solo motherhood.
If that is where you are, Solo Mum Society partners with City Fertility in Australia, and eligible community members can access a 20% discount on selected fertility testing and treatment services.
This is useful if you are ready to start gathering medical information or understanding your options. It is not something you need to do simply because you have started considering solo motherhood.
You do not need to know the answer today.
You only need to decide what would be useful next.
If you are still at the beginning and want to understand what you should even be thinking about, start with the free Decision Starter.
If you already know you want to work through the decision in more depth, explore Considering Solo Motherhood.
And if all you need today is to keep reading and thinking, that is okay too.
There is no prize for deciding faster; the value is in making a decision that actually feels like yours.