Katie Hopkins: Spent too long looking for Mr Right? Give up on having babies

The number of women giving birth after 50 has doubled in the last five years but who would really want to have a baby in their 50s?

At 50 I intend to be frightening my daughters’ boyfriends with embarrassing questions and packing my girls off to university with a laundry basket and a lecture about drugs. I will not be lying on my back in a maternity ward showing the midwives what my fifty year old bits look like after a life time of wear and tear.

At 50 your body is going to be quite shocked if you do something as unnatural as trying to have a baby. Tina Malone ended up having an emergency caesarean after a pregnancy full of complications. And just because IVF has made it possible doesn’t make it right.

A quarter of people think IVF shouldn’t be offered to women over 40.  Two-thirds think having a baby over 50 is harmful for a child.

I am one of them.

[My name is Katie Hopkins, and I'm an Aldi virgin]
[Bingo and beer, Katie Hopkins tries out the finer things in life]

Just because you were too busy working, or spent too long waiting for Mr Right to come along does not mean you can do the wrong thing and catch up on childbirth when you get your bus pass.

Carole Hobson is the oldest lady to have a baby in the UK. She is 64 and a single mother of three year old twins. She will be 70 before they reach their tenth birthday and will need luck and good health to see some of their teenage years. Either way she certainly won’t be active enough to enjoy it with them.

Yes celebrities have made it look easy. Uma Thurman had her third baby at 42, Gwen Steffani was rocking her pregnancy at 44 and Halle Berry broke the celebrity record at 46. Halle will always be etched in our memories as a Bond girl in a bikini. But as a mother of a teen at 60 she is something I would never want to be.

I had my first baby at 28 and the second a year after. Even in your twenties it is exhausting stuff.  Combining full time work and weekends running around with a double buggy and two tots requires the stamina of ten men.

Deciding to become a mother is a massive step. Recognising your life will never be the same again and understanding you will make endless sacrifices for your child is part of the process.

Sacrificing time in your thirties for a baby is the ultimate gift you can give your child. You are financially secure, physically strong and mentally equipped to be the best mum you can be.  Hogging that time to yourself is your decision. But not one you can regret and overturn at 50.

Science may have allowed us to cheat the system with donor eggs and IVF. But cheating your child out of a meaningful relationship with their mother as they grow up is surely the biggest con of all.