Smash hit

“It’s the hardest thing I have ever done, both physically and emotionally,” she says. “It is also the most rewarding. Luca brings tears of joy to my eyes every day, and I’m just so glad I’ve been able to have a child. I hadn’t been in a serious relationship for over two years — I just hadn’t met the right men, and I knew I couldn’t wait.

“A lot of women say, ‘Oh I couldn’t do that — it would be so hard.’ Yes it is hard, but I find it extraordinary that women are prepared to put 100% into their careers and yet think single motherhood would be too much work. I definitely did the right thing for me.”

Viki Matten is an early pioneer in the “single mother by choice” movement. Three of her friends donated their sperm to help her get pregnant. To this day, she does not know which attempt was successful. Her son Alex was born in 1990.

“I considered a one-night stand, but was too shy and was also worried about the Aids risk,” said Matten, now 50, who lives in Hackney, east London. “I waited for Mr Right, then I waited for Mr Okay You’ll Do, then I did it myself. I figured I had 40-50 years left to have a relationship, but only a limited window to have a baby. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done — Alex is the light of my life.”

Getting men to co-operate — even if traditional methods are employed — is not always straightforward, of course. One woman, who did not want to be named, said she found that 21st century metro-man is now frustratingly aware of “shared responsibility” when it comes to sexual encounters, and her attempts at impregnation became farcical as she attempted to find a man who would mate au naturel.

More honest arrangements are sometimes preferable. A woman has a pact with her ex-boyfriend so that if they both end up childless towards the end of their thirties he will father her baby. Georgina Ford found herself divorced at 35, and asked her best friend to father a child, Kyle, now nine. “One night, as we were having dinner at my house, I asked how he would feel about getting me pregnant,” she said. “I waited for his shocked reaction, but he said, ‘Fine. If it will make you happy, I’ll do it.’ He didn’t want to be a hands-on father, and I promised not to ask for help or money.”

SO why are women going it alone? “They are doing it because they can,” says Beresford. “More women are economically independent, and are pursuing single motherhood as a lifestyle choice. Celebrities have led the way, because they have high earning power.”

Also, the stigma of being a single mother has largely disappeared, though many acknowledge the problems that can afflict the children of lone mothers from poorer backgrounds.

While the phrases “fallen woman” and “living in sin” are from the 1950s, “illegitimate” and “bastard” appear anachronistic.

“This is a key factor,” says Paula Hall, a Relate counsellor and relationship psychotherapist. “Women used to be afraid that their children will be stigmatised at school. That is no longer the case.

“I see a lot of women who have been preoccupied with careers and work rather than finding a partner, and when that strong maternal drive kicks in, becoming a single mother is often the option.”

A recent YouGov survey showed that two-thirds of women questioned found it acceptable for a financially secure single woman to deliberately set out to have a child by herself. In America, an organisation called Single Mothers by Choice lobbies on their behalf, and has a growing band of British members.

Nick Neave, a psychologist at Northumbria University, believes women are simply adapting to changing environmental circumstance. “Women have got the resources now to choose their own reproductive outcomes,” he says.

“In the past they needed a hunter-gatherer to accompany them on the journey, now in modern western society females can breed successfully without a mate because of their growing independence. This is part of the evolutionary process — we are very good as a species at adapting rapidly to change, that’s why humans are doing so well and pandas are knackered.”

This might be good news for women, but it makes for pretty depressing reading for men — particularly since they are often handed a maintenance bill for a child they didn’t know they were going to have. One woman, who admitted to pursuing a man purely for his sperm and now receives a £346.50 monthly “bonus” from him, says: “It means he can’t get a mortgage, but I don’t care, he wasn’t very nice to me — if he’d behaved better I might have let him stick around.”

Some women, of course, don’t want to stop at one child. Clare, a 35-year-old criminal law paralegal from Berkshire, has done a “double Geri”, resulting in Charlie and Mia. She got pregnant by her then lover in 2003. Shortly after the baby was born, the relationship fell apart. She then plotted with her best friend to set up her unsuspecting ex a second time.

“I seduced him in a pub car park when I knew I was at my most fertile,” she says. “I put on a little floral dress and a bit of makeup. I had a lucky shot, and that was it.

“I called up my friend and said, ‘That was the easiest thing I’ve ever done.’ I can’t say it was romantic, but now I’ve a beautiful daughter, who is nearly two. I have heard that he has since had the snip.”

The names of some of the women in this story have been changed at their request to protect their identities

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