Playing fertility roulette: Kate Spicer explains why getting pregnant after a one-night stand would be a happy mistake

The author of a controversial new book says she was so desperate for a baby she got pregnant 'accidentally on purpose' in a one-night stand. KATE SPICER admits that - like many women - she's played the same dangerous game...

Three weeks ago, I bought a pregnancy test. As a single, childless woman in my late 30s, my exact thoughts while I was waiting for the result were as follows: 'If I am not pregnant, then good. I'm happy.



Life continues as before. Panic over. If I am pregnant, then that's terrifying. But thrilling, too. A happy accident that was meant to happen, whether I stay with the father or not.'

The test, as it happened, was negative which means, for me, another narrow escape or a lost opportunity - depending on which way you look at it.

Waiting for a 'happy accident': Kate Spicer

But my life could so easily have gone one of two ways that day, and I couldn't help thinking of that when I read about a new book on late motherhood called Accidentally On Purpose.

The author - single, 39-year-old Mary Pols - got pregnant as a result of unprotected sex on an ill-advised one-night stand, and the book is all about her emotional journey to single mumdom, not to mention her heroic attempts to forge some sort of relationship with the stranger who fathered her child.

In the book, she asks herself whether she conceived 'accidentally on purpose'. The sex in question, she insists, was purely for pleasure. But was there a secret agenda at work?

She was, after all, like the rest of us maturing singletons, in the last-chance saloon as far as her fertility was concerned. True love, marriage and all that was passing her by.

'In America, they even have a name for this - they call them 'gotcha' pregnancies'

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Maybe she didn't deliberately set out to ensnare the guy. But there was no way she was even going to consider an abortion once she discovered she was expecting, and now the child is five and the light of her life.

The truth is that there are thousands of other 'accidental mothers' out there. You have only to look at the statistics to realise that.



More than half of all conceptions are outside marriage, for a start. Couple that with the fact there has been a sharp increase in the number of children born to those in the 35-39 age group, and you get the picture.

Some of these women approach the task in a far more ruthless manner than Mary Pols did, purposefully going out and sleeping with men when they know they are at their most fertile.

In America, they even have a name for this - they call them 'gotcha' pregnancies. Many of the women involved deliberately avoid birth control and have no intention of letting their unwitting bedfellow know this.

The calculations involved in doing that are far beyond my imagination. Getting pregnant, after all, is not that easy. But I have absolutely no doubt that it happens.

Last chance saloon: Some women are so desperate to have children they are resorting to desperate measures by getting pregnant on one-night stands



On a recent trip to India, I went kayaking with a very handsome Indian man from the Himalayas who owned the kayaking company. He had unwittingly fathered a child during a holiday fling.



The woman involved went to India on a mission to find a good specimen to impregnate her, and now she's back at home, heavily pregnant, and the guy doesn't even know if he will ever see the baby.

He is not angry, though; he knows she is having his daughter, and in a delightful Indian way says he is happy that she is happy.

And much as I think it is immoral to set out to get pregnant in such a calculated way, sometimes you are just so bored with trying to find the perfect nuclear set-up that a small primitive part of you just thinks: 'Ooh, let's just see what happens with this one, and if this leads to a baby, then so be it.'

'Some women purposely go out and sleep with men when they are at their most fertile'

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And the older you get, the more tempting that becomes.

Women in long-term relationships can, in theory, plan a pregnancy and have sex at the right moment.



But if you have failed to find a partner who wants to have children, then, albeit subconsciously, you may find yourself engineering the chance to conceive in a somewhat ruthless way. It's an emotional, hormonal urge in all fertile women which is not governed by common sense.

That's not to say I'm on a crazed mission to get pregnant. I am now 39, but I have felt broody on and off throughout my 20s and 30s. And so, when I'm in a relationship - and sometimes even when I'm not - I have long taken an incredibly casual approach to contraception; waiting, I think not even that subconsciously, for the happy accident to happen to me.

Yes, I know about the dangers of sexually transmitted diseases, and I know the emotional damage casual sex can leave in its wake. I'm not some reckless evangelist for promiscuity.

People have a lot of sex for pleasure these days, but there has to be a purpose to it at some point. So I have always thought: 'You know what, if I do get pregnant, I don't mind. It's not the end of the world.'

I want to have your babies: There has been a sharp increase in the number of pregnancies amongst the 35-39 age group



It's like I'm letting nature decide when the time is right.

So far, the time has not been right, and thank God for nature's motherly wisdom. But if it were to happen, it would not be a disaster.

That's why I wouldn't chastise anyone - man or woman - who sought out parenthood on a totally subconscious level.

So few relationships are perfect these days. We do not live in a society where everything is neat and tidy any more. Sometimes, desperate measures are called for if you want to get pregnant. And, if the woman has any sense, one hopes she will have chosen someone who is going to deal with the consequences in an adult way.

'Sometimes desperate measures are called for when you want to get pregnant'

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I haven't used contraception for years and years - I hate taking the Pill - and I'm always entirely honest about that with the men I sleep with.



As far as I'm concerned, if a guy is having unprotected sex with me, then he knows what he is doing, and if he doesn't, then he is just arrogant and more fool him.

If men aren't responsible about their own contraception, they are laying themselves open to manipulation by women. Pregnancy has long been used as leverage by the desperate. Maybe the woman is in a relationship with a powerful man and she wants to get a hold over him, even if only in a financial way.

There's a pop star I can think of, for example, who had several women in his harem and when one of them got pregnant, another of his groupies was outraged that she had lost the race. The pregnant one, meanwhile, became the wife.

Other women might be desperate because they want to keep a man who has strayed. Or maybe she just really wants a baby and he doesn't.

I mean, what kind of fool has unprotected sex with an older woman without considering what her agenda might be? I joked about that to a guy I was seeing last year after we had made love: 'Ooh, unprotected sex with someone of my age. Very risky.' He laughed nervously. Then said: 'What will be, will be.'

But, seriously, if a man takes a risk like that, he has to face the consequences. The woman, meanwhile, needs to make sure she has unprotected sex with the right kind of man.

I don't just sleep with anyone. To even have sex, let alone unprotected sex, in the first place means the guy must have something special. I don't want an accident to happen with just anyone. They've got to have good genes even if they are not relationship material, and I'm sure that is always secretly at the back of my mind each time I fall for someone. It's a biological thing; I'm subconsciously on the lookout for good breeding stock.

Author Mary Pols got pregnant after a one-night stand



She wrote a book about her experience called Accidentally On Purpose



I was seeing a guy last year who was very good-looking. He had excellent teeth, too - that's one of the first things that women check out.

And I remember one evening when I was a bit drunk on lust, and probably wine as well, telling him what beautiful children we could make together.



I knew the relationship was going nowhere fast. But in a cynical flash, I couldn't help assessing him as a potential breeding partner and my conclusion was: what a great product we could make together.

Perhaps I should be more calculating. I remember a close female relation of mine, very proper and upper middle class, telling me she was going to have sex just to get pregnant. Any man would do.



But I have never wanted to do that. A happy accident is one thing, but actually to go out and plan an 'unwanted pregnancy' is something else entirely, and it's not for me.

Men can want to be fathers accidentally on purpose, too, you know. I don't think they are always the poor victimised man with some awful harridan forcing her fertility wishes on him. Men are equal players in this game.

I know men who have been caught out by one-night stands or by relationships that weren't going anywhere. They might think their lives have been screwed up, but they always love the child. So is it really that bad?

On the few occasions I've had scares/thrills, most guys were, with varying degrees, cool to very excited about it, despite the fact we had never seriously talked about having kids.

When I think about it rationally, though, if I had been pregnant any of these times, it would have been far from ideal. I have no doubt that I would have loved the baby unconditionally.



But I doubt very much that I was ever mature enough to settle into a long-term relationship with any of the men I took risks with.

And as the child myself of a marriage that ended in bitter divorce, I don't really want to impose a broken family on another. Or, worse, no family at all.

There are many very harried and lonely single mothers out there, and I count many of them among my friends. Their struggle is not to be underestimated.

Marriage is no guarantee, of course. I've got a really good friend who was very happily married. She had the big house in the Home Counties and children at private school. But then her husband left her, skipped the country and now she's a penniless single mother, so even the safest bet can let you down.

I suppose what I'm saying is that there are no guarantees. Given the fragility of the nuclear family dream, are women really so bad for just procreating as and when an opportunity arises?

Of course, a part of me does feel sad that I haven't met a person with whom I want to raise children. But that doesn't mean I don't still want children. I've watched with a benign envy as my brother and sister-in-law start their family.

So while there's still time, I will probably keep on playing this particular game of fertility roulette. I just can't help myself.