A long time ago, I was a passenger in a car accident. I remember every second of the lead-up to impact: the awareness of the cataclysmic gravity of the situation; the overwhelming panic; the suffocating impotence of not being able to do a single thing to stop it.

I found a certain peace, like the one I experienced in that accident, that has never left me. Credit: ISTOCK

Then, you know what happened? What I remember most clearly? Once I realised that I couldn’t do a single thing to stop what was about to happen, I became overwhelmingly calm, tranquil even. Seconds felt like slow-motion minutes. And it was beautiful. True peace. I gave myself over to fate.

Obviously, I survived. But those moments are etched in my mind forever, a lesson I don’t want to forget.

I recalled this incident recently to a new friend of mine, a woman in her early 40s who is doing what
most single women without children of that age do – obsessing about babies.

She is weighing up all her options, but at the same time says her intuition tells her no, motherhood’s not for her. But what if she has regrets? What if she wakes up one day and believes she missed her mission in life? It’s a rough emotional........

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