Danielle spent a year travelling solo around Australia in a campervan — her “year of summer” — working out whether solo motherhood was for her. Now she’s a mum to six-month-old Summer, conceived through IVF at City Fertility Melbourne after three IUIs and a chemical pregnancy. She shares the grief of letting go of the romantic dream, navigating interstate treatment from Tasmania, accessing super for fertility costs, and why she couldn’t be happier with her choice.

Merryn has Sully with an ex who cheated two weeks postpartum, Sinclair via IVF with City Fertility, and baby girl on the way. She does both — co-parenting and solo motherhood by choice — and says solo is easier every time. She’s also built a duplex next door to another solo mum. Practical, warm and completely no-nonsense.

Sam started her solo mum journey at 24 in New Zealand, waited over 3 years for a donor, did IVF at 29 — injecting herself in the back of an ambulance between shifts — and got pregnant on her first frozen Easter transfer. Theo is 8 months. She built a Canterbury solo mum community from a Facebook post and recently got back from Fiji. Warm, funny and overwhelmingly positive.

Claire started IVF at 30 with endo and a thin endometrial lining, went through 5 failed transfers, two early losses, and landed in the NSW donor audit that nearly ended her access to her chosen donor. She now has Augie, 9 weeks old. Warm, practical, and packed with things nobody told her about the newborn stage.

Brooke spent years in a relationship with a man who didn't want more kids. Her brother's brain aneurysm at 42 was the wake-up call. She started IVF at 43 — 11 eggs, 7 embryos, four transfers, a chemical pregnancy, and a Plan B car — before the fourth transfer worked. Mia was born 10 days after Brooke's 44th birthday. Her dad met Mia before he passed. Honest, warm, and quietly remarkable.

Alex tried a recruited known donor for 12 months, two early miscarriages, stage two endo, and multiple IVF cycles before a double transfer finally worked. She's also a foster mum to a 16-year-old. Ollie is six and a half months — they've already been to Bali, Canberra, Darwin and are heading to Europe. A two-part episode covering the full journey from first try to six months in.

Kate navigated Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, Asperger's, three rounds of IUI and eight-plus IVF cycles before a natural FET in December brought Amelia. She now lives with her parents in Tasmania, works from home four days a week, and is taking Amelia to Japan. An honest, warm story about persistence, late diagnosis and never giving up.

How one solo mum by choice built her family from a Tasmanian town of 35 people: a first-try IUI, gestational diabetes, her son's clubfoot treatment, and the four-generation household that helped raise him. An honest look at solo motherhood outside the big cities, from decision to two and a half years in.

Nine days after telling her family she was done fighting, Jessica's mum died — leaving Jessica to plan a funeral with her five-month-old in the next room. Part 2 of her story: a COVID homecoming gone wrong, grief and gratitude in the same two hands, a tattoo that says "look for the joy," and why she's chosen to be one and done. Honest, heavy in places, and ends somewhere good.

Jessica set a deadline for solo motherhood at 32 — and spent the years before it on nursing school, bariatric surgery and a 70kg weight loss. Then her mum was diagnosed with terminal cancer right as she started IVF. Part 1 of her story: the donor she found in a single afternoon, a lower-than-hoped egg collection, and the calm caesarean that changed everything.

Emma was 32 with an AMH of 8 when she decided to stop waiting and just do it. One round of IVF, first transfer, pregnant. Franklin is now 17 months old. She talks about the decision, choosing a donor by vibe, an hour-15 active labour, mixed feeding, a wedding at 5 days postpartum, and the work complications nobody prepares you for. A warm, reassuring listen for anyone just starting out.

Kristina had IVF at 38 with an implanted defibrillator, a COVID pregnancy, a baby born with talipes (clubfoot), a miscarriage, then moved back to New Zealand 7 months pregnant with her second. Otis is 5 and Ari is 2 and a half. She's just launched her own business. This episode is for anyone with a health condition who thinks solo motherhood might not be possible for them.

Lindsay is the kind of person who, when she decides something is happening, makes it happen.

She promised herself at 27 — the day she left her marriage — that not having a partner would never mean not having a child. She promised herself again at 30, moving to Scotland on her own without knowing a single person. And she promised herself at 35 that if she was still single, she would make it happen that year. She was. She did.

Most of the stories on this podcast start at the beginning. This one starts seven years down the track — and it's one of the most valuable perspectives we have.

Renee made her first appointment at 37, after a colleague finally said the quiet part loud and told her to just do it already. She did two IUI rounds, had a bad experience with her first IVF clinic and walked away, found Dr David Wilkinson at City Fertility, and on her third and final round — a frozen transfer she specifically advocated for against the default fresh option — fell pregnant with Aria. She was 39.

Ashleigh's story is one of those ones that will genuinely reassure anyone who is at the very beginning of this journey and quietly terrified about how long it might take.

She was 33 when a friend planted the seed about egg freezing. She went to an initial clinic consultation — more curious than committed — and on the same day, a colleague at work mentioned she'd just had a baby via IVF with a sperm donor. Two seeds in one day. Eight months later, Ashleigh was pregnant.

When Maree came on to record, she had just had her very first IUI. She was 35, freshly into treatment, overwhelmed by the scan schedule, quietly terrified, and moving back in with her parents to make it financially possible. We recorded Part 1 that day.

Then we waited.

Part 2 picks up on the other side — after two unsuccessful IUIs, a full IVF cycle with PCOS that produced 29 eggs and four embryos, a frozen transfer that worked on the first attempt, and the arrival of Ellena via a planned maternal-assisted caesarean. Maree pulled her own daughter out. She cut the cord herself.

PCOS, Perinatal Loss & Pregnancy After Loss — Gemma, Thomas & Henry | No Need for Prince Charming

Gemma shares IVF with PCOS, losing Thomas at 24 weeks, pregnancy after loss, and Henry's emergency C-section at 34 weeks. Raw, honest and deeply moving.

S5:E12 | Luce & Gabe — Part 2: 160 Days, and Then Home

Missed Part 1? Start with S5:E11 — Luce's IVF journey, multiple losses, and the night her membranes ruptured at 22 weeks.

Gabe was born at 10:35am on a Wednesday morning, weighing 598 grams. He was 30 centimetres long. He came out flat and silent, and a team of eight people swooped in immediately. Luce didn't know he was a boy for five full minutes.

By quarter past twelve, she was in a wheelchair going upstairs to meet him.

S5:E11 | Luce — Part 1: The Long Road & the Night Everything Changed

This is a two-part episode. Part 1 ends at the birth. Part 2 — the NICU journey and life now — drops next week.

Some stories you have to tell in two parts. Luce's is one of them.

Luce is a nurse based in regional Victoria who froze her eggs at 36, made the decision to go solo shortly after, and then spent the next four years navigating one of the most complex IVF journeys I've heard on this podcast. Four egg collections. Multiple transfers. Multiple losses. A late endometriosis diagnosis that may have changed everything. And finally — on the most chaotic, stressful, nothing-going-right transfer day imaginable — the embryo that stuck.

What happened next nobody could have predicted.

S5:E9 | Michelle & Vayda-Rae — The Long Wait, the Leap & Life on the Other Side

Michelle always knew she wanted to be a mum. What she didn't know was that the path to getting there would involve a two and a half year wait just to choose a donor.

She made her first appointment at Fertility Associates in New Zealand in 2014 at the age of 34, was told there were five donor profiles to choose from, and was promptly put on a waitlist. She spent the next two and a half years living in parallel — open to meeting someone, but keeping her eye firmly on this path. When the call finally came in 2016, she sat down with her five profiles, eliminated three for minor medical reasons and two for wanting more contact than she was comfortable with, and chose the tallest one. Vayda-Rae was born after four IUI cycles — a chemical pregnancy, a negative, an overstimulated cancelled cycle, and then a successful fourth round at 37 — partly funded by her parents.