I've never been a fan of kids. They're noisy and self-absorbed and had interrupted the peaceful, child-free equilibrium I so enjoyed at many a social event. I spent my twenties and half my thirties avoiding looking at photos of other people's spawn so as not to give away my disinterest and be judged a cold, barren bitch. I was utterly committed to remaining child-free.
Alex and I met at a New Year's Eve party in 2013. Well, apparently, we did - I drank too much champagne and can't recall. I'd recently returned home from living overseas and was still in full 'party girl' mode. I was having a lovely party in the pool with another lady at the time, if you get what I mean.
We had about a million mutual friends, so a few days later we met again at a pub, and later that afternoon she asked me out. Soon we were on our very first date and getting on like a house on fire.
I was in my mid-thirties, and she was (ahem) a good few years younger. We were about three drinks and a couple of share plates in when I boldly declared,
"This seems to be going quite well, so you should probably know, I'm never getting married, and I don't want kids".
Alex, always even-keeled, barely flinched, and we quickly returned to that fun, first date flirty banter.
Fast forward a year and, like all good lesbians, we'd been shacked up for quite some time. Joined by my beloved bulldog, Frank (aka the only baby I was ever having), we went away for a weekend with my parents at the Sunshine Coast.
I woke on our first morning there, left Alex to keep sleeping, and wandered outside to greet the day. There was my Dad, the hard-arsed ex-Army Colonel, paddling in the shallows with Frank, trying to teach the not-at-all-buoyant bastard to swim.
"Come on Franky, come on Franky" he said encouragingly, bending over and splashing, as if to demonstrate how easy it would be, if only the fat bastard weren't a keg on legs.
A moment later Mum wandered in and announced, "Frank's already had his breakfast and he really enjoyed his five kilometre walk this morning".
Fuck. Someone get these two baby-starved wingnuts a grandchild immediately.
The following day we were driving home when I looked into the back seat, turned to Alex and said, "It might be cool if there was a baby back there, hey?"
She simply smiled and said, "Yeah, that'd be pretty cool".
I'm a highly sensitive person with a good dose of anxiety, so I'm prone to over-thinking almost everything, but it honestly turned on a dime for me that weekend. I hated to admit that I was the cliché that 'changed her mind when she met the right person', because a) so many women don't so shut up, and b) vomit.
But I now imagined my life with Alex and a kid or two, and once I envision something for myself, I want it immediately.
It was as simple as that. One minute I was completely dedicated to a child-free life, the next we had a biological code red on our hands, and I was googling fertility clinics with all the fervour of a 35-year-old lesbian with endometriosis and a declining egg reserve.
And ain't that a story for another day?!