How have you measured out the last year of your life? In the number of binged TV series? Walks in the park? Or perhaps, by the number of periods, injections to your hormone-rounded rump or the hopeful swipes on dating apps? For some the past 12 months have put a pause on one of the few decisions in our lives that has a biological deadline: should you have a baby? And if so, how, where, when and with whom? It is a question that smacks into us like a train at the beginning of what I call “the panic years”, a period of turmoil in your 30s, during which all decisions about love, work, friendship or where to live are given a special sense of urgency by the fact that you can mark your declining fertility with each monthly cycle.