While I’ve been weighing up the pros and cons of motherhood, it feels like everyone else I know has jumped in with two feet. Birth rates during the pandemic have reportedly fallen overall, but my Instagram feed tells a different tale, crammed with scan photos and pics of new arrivals, posted by my peers. It’s like everyone else is racing ahead with their lives and I’m getting left behind.

The people I used to party with have now moved into an altogether more adult zone than the one I currently inhabit. Do I try and catch up or do I wait it out? Do I accept that my days of carefree socialising are coming to a close or continue to enjoy my independence as the biological clock ticks?

I have considered that, in all of my debating, maybe I’ve missed the point.

Maybe motherhood and mischief can co-exist, and one doesn’t necessarily need to come at the expense of the other? Perhaps as women, and as mothers, we really can have it all, just like the Instagram captions have been telling us? It’s surely not a stretch to say women can be mothers while also being avid travellers, successful career women, and the first to suggest cocktails too.

Lucy reminds me that we always have the choice to do things on our own terms. There are no set rules when it comes to how we do motherhood, and each of us can choose how we want to parent. There’s a balance to be struck, and options like IVF and egg-freezing have made delaying motherhood a more viable option for some.

“Although I am not hitting the tiles every night with three kids and a pandemic ongoing, I have got my life into a balanced place where right up until March 2020 I didn’t feel guilty for going out,” Lucy says.

“I know that I need to have fun, to see my friends, to go to a gig, to stay in a hotel and not feel bad about it. My diary from the end of May is booked up with girly meet-ups, hotel get-togethers and I’m ready to hit purchase when the right gig tickets come along.”

So, if the pandemic has made you feel extra pressure to settle down and start a family before you’re ready and, like me, you’re looking for permission to delay motherhood for a little longer, consider it granted. I don’t know when I’ll be ready for a baby (34? 35? 40?) but I do know this: Right now I’m still enjoying the dregs of my youth, and I’m making no apologies for it.

How do you know when the time is right to have a baby? One writer’s “unapologetic” view