A is for Argentina. B is for Beyoncé.

I’m back! Goodbye Argentina. Hello London.

It’s great to be home but, before you die, if you possibly can, you must see a tango show in Buenos Aires; drink a glass of Malbec in Mendoza; ride like a gaucho across the Pampas (I highly recommend doing it at this place – Los Potreros); and visit the Iguazu Falls – there’s no other word for them but awesome. And, of course, if you feel like you want to, you must also climb the highest mountain in the Western and Southern Hemisphere – Aconcagua.

So this week, A is for Argentina – one of the most amazing countries in the world – but B has to be for Beyoncé.

I wonder whether it was just a coincidence that the night before the Carters’ twin-pregnancy announcement, I was sitting in an Argentinian hotel room, listening to Jay Z’s Glory – his song about the birth of their first daughter, Blue Ivy. Was it just coincidence or did my psyche somehow know, ever attuned to other people’s pregnancy announcements like so many people who have struggled to conceive.

Prior to the birth of their first baby, the couple experienced a miscarriage. Beyoncé has spoken of it; in Glory, Jay-Z sung about it. This and the five year wait for their second child and the announcement that the couple are expecting twins has naturally led me to wonder – although nothing has been officially said – whether the couple might have been through IVF?

If they have, I truly hope they’ll say. I hope they’ll talk about the pain, inadequacy and uncertainty of struggling to conceive. I hope they’ll highlight how much it costs and how it doesn’t always work. I hope they’ll talk about the need to improve fertility education so that women are better placed to make choices between motherhood and their careers. I hope along with their delight at being blessed ‘two times over’, they’ll also mention the possible danger of multiple births. And if, as some people are saying, they’ve chosen the sex of their twins, I hope they’ll talk about the ethics of reproductive science and its increasing ability to design human-beings.

Because me writing and talking about the pursuit of motherhood is one thing. But if Beyoncé does, then things really might start to change. So this week, A is for Argentina and B is for Beyoncé. And C, well, C is for the Clooneys who are also, allegedly, expecting twins…

http://www.thepursuitofmotherhood.com