Amber Heard has announced the arrival of her twins, a daughter, Agnes and a son, Ocean. In a powerful Instagram post, coinciding with Mother’s Day in the US, she described the process of becoming a single mother.

“Today I officially share the news that I welcomed twins into the Heard gang,” she wrote. “My daughter Agnes and my son Ocean are keeping my hands (and my heart) full.”

Heard went on, “Becoming a mother by myself and on my own terms, despite my own fertility challenges, has been the most humbling experience of my life. I am eternally grateful that I was able to choose this responsibly and thoughtfully. To all the moms, wherever you are today and however you got here, my dream family and I are celebrating with you.”

Amber Heard, who is also mother to four-year-old daughter Oonagh, is far from the only woman choosing to go through motherhood alone. Here, we revisit Charlie Hewett’s Glamour essay about pursuing solo motherhood…

Sitting across from my GP in his surgery in my small hometown of Cullompton in Devon, I asked him what my options were as a single, heterosexual 31-year-old woman wanting to become a mother on my own.

He looked at me blankly and said, “I’ve never had anyone ask that before; I’ll have to speak to the local fertility clinics and get back to you.” That was two years ago, and last week I celebrated my son Phineas’ first birthday.

I’m part of a growing number of women – some even in their twenties – who are becoming solo mothers by choice, mainly through the use of donor sperm. (Latest figures from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority reveal that the number of treatment cycles where women use their own eggs with donor sperm went up by 50% between 2015 – 2018.)

For a lot of these women this is not a last resort or a back-up plan because we’ve ‘left it too late’, but a conscious and conscientious decision to take control of our fertility, not be hindered by our biological clock or settle for the wrong partner because we’ve run out of time. We’re financially independent with a strong support network and enough love in our lives to ensure our children get the best possible start in life.

I’ve always wanted to be a mum and by the time I was 24, I realised that I never saw myself with a partner I would want to have a baby with. Yes, it was quite young to think that, but I just hadn’t met that person who I clicked with. I tried to date with little success, and I just kept coming back to the fact I was happy on my own.