Last weekend, my baby boy, Oryn, turned one. As I helped him blow out the candle on his first birthday cake, he beamed up at me and I felt a rush of pride and joy.
It was followed immediately by the heart-stopping thought: ‘What if I hadn’t been brave enough to have you?’ That might be an odd thing for a young mum of 26 to say — after all, deciding to try for a baby is not an act
A couple of years ago I started losing weight very rapidly, for no apparent reason. The pounds were falling off me, even as I waited for an appointment to see my GP.
My clothes no longer fitted: the waist of my trousers suddenly sat on my hips. I thought, ‘This is it, not only has some disease invaded my brain, but now my body, too.’
I was convinced I had cancer. ‘You know I don’t want treatment?’ I told my
Ever since I was young, I knew I wanted to have children — a large brood of little ones, with all the squabbles and exhaustion and love that brings. When I started dating my now-wife, Anya, in 2004, we knew we were too old — I was 32, she was 33 — to waste time on a relationship where the other wanted a completely different life.
So we talked early on about the important stuff, and I told her I
