It was love at first sight the night Thomas* and I met. Because his pics on the dating website were slightly out of focus I had no idea what to expect. But then in walked this good-looking, brawny guy with braces on his teeth and I knew in my heart he was 'the one'.
By our third date, we'd made the decision to forgo birth control and start a family. We got along so well, had the same sense of humour and loved sports. Also, I’d recently left my former boyfriend after a two-year relationship because he didn’t want children.
At the time, I was 41, Thomas was 38, and we both realised that if I wanted to be a mother, it was now or never. That November I moved into Thomas's house in the country with plenty of room for a nursery, as well as a huge garden, and over the next 18 months, we tried (and tried) for a baby. "What do you think of the name Paul?" he asked over breakfast.
"Or Matilda, if it's a girl?" But despite having constant sex; taking my temperature upon waking and calculating when I would ovulate; and even turning to traditional Chinese medicine and acupuncture, every month, without fail, my period would appear. On those rare occasions when I was late, I'd buy a pregnancy test and anxiously wait for the second blue line to appear. My breasts felt swollen, I'd convince myself, and the smell of a friend's cigarette smoke made me nauseous.
Surely, I was expecting. The negative test results, however, confirmed otherwise. "I think we should try IVF," I said.
The tick toc.