"It appears the test was negative after all. There is no antibody anti-sperm count. You are completely clear. That will be £120 please."

Thank you, God. Faith in the white coats became tarnished - but our spirits rose, for a while, along with the credit card bill. It was easier to pay for their mistake than to forgive myself - if I wasn't mad I must be bad.

"You must have optimum health to have a baby. Cleanse your body it's like cleaning your house for a visitor. Take lots of vitamin E and zinc."

I read an article in a Sunday newspaper titled "Better Babies By Design". It said, "Why have and ordinary baby when you could have a better one Better babies are well-proportioned from head to toe. They have excellent posture, symmetrical skulls. They are alert, quick and calm - perfect in every way. They are how we were meant to be - products not of genetic engineering but of healthy living." Healthy Living I could do - with knobs on and fanfares. Not having a cigarette, not drinking a bottle of wine, or a cup of coffee, not eating Camembert and chocolate mousse gave me a sense of control. And a sense of virtue. I was doing my bit for the war effort - a willing sacrifice to support the front line troops. Only one had to get through - one tiny, determined, wriggling spermatozoa - to pierce the soft wall of only one small, free- floating, ripe follicle. His sperm, my egg - fusion in the dark canal - a zygote, a bundle of new unique genes, a one-off design with no patent, no replicas, irreplaceable, a gift, a miniature secret waiting to be discovered. Yes, I cleaned the house, endlessly, with the new mops and brooms of healthy living and filled it with the fresh flowers of organic nutrition. I expected a visit from the King or the Queen at any moment. But they never came, or even left their shadows at the keyhole.

"You must carry on with your life - pursue your own career."

"It sometimes happens if you change your career. Or move house. Or get a cat. Or buy a cot."

I lived the life of a double agent. I had a career. At least I had a job, sometimes I had several jobs. In the real world I looked and sounded normal. We had friends to supper, we had rows about money, we decorated our flat, we filled the photograph albums with snapshots of other peoples families and their growing children. But this everyday life was the negative to the colour film I actually lived in. My true career was cinematographer, dedicated to making the story of our own family, with a happy ending, but full of gritty drama, with no romantic illusions about the domestic life of the species called children.

My ambition was to join my sisters in the club of motherhood - so that I could feel normal, as well as look normal. Their struggles and exhaustion did not deter me. Childbirth seemed to me to be the entry ticket to the big game - I longed to play - to be in the middle of the scrum - not watching on TV. Being on the side lines meant I could always judge other women with their children - in the street, in the supermarket - and hate them. How can she talk to her daughter like that? Doesn't she know what damage she's doing? If she hits that child again I'm going to kill her. I wouldn't do it like that. But then I'll never be tested like that. My test was to keep the candle alight. We did carry on. We did move house, changed careers - at least our outside careers. We experimented to see if we could live on one income - I gradually gave up work - he proved again and again that he could support us. We played mum and dad with an empty nursery.

Nothing happened.

At last, the flame burning low, we approached the holy grail of IVF - in vitro fertilisation - assisted conception - assisted by a man with a big moustache. We put our lips to the rim but never drank. We started the tests with the scales tipped heavily against us -80/20 - 80 percent likelihood of miscarriage after age 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45…even if conception takes place. We chose the 20 percent. Then while we waited for my hormone cycle to fit in with their calendar, after nearly ten years, the torch went out. We blew it out - backed away from the only chance left to make us into a family. Like war wounded we crumpled with spires of home in sight. We both knew it was one invasion too many. We took the blackened stub of our torch to the surprise gift of a counsellor and so began the journey of tears. We mourned differently and separately in the ashes but kept each other in view, trying to make a new film together without the leading characters, the plot unclear. I still secretly hoped for a miracle.

That is until this other fire started in my belly. And now in spite of red clover and vitamin E, it rages up and down my body without warning, ready or not, sounding the death knell to any miracle. There will be no children from our union. This hot wind blowing through our lives is carrying something else -the tiny germinating seeds of a different life. During the long restless nights, in the cooker of my duvet, I am hatching another egg, gently cradled in the skin of my unborn babies. Slowly giving birth to me, unknown woman, entering the last cave, ripe for wisdom. My companion is the the man who walked with me on the coals of the first fire. We are forging a lighter passion as we loosen the shrouds of our lost parenthood and dip into the uncertain cauldron of Man/ Woman loving.

He enters the room now, closely followed by the soft fur-ball of our cat. He stands behind me at the rain-streaked window and puts his arms round my damp waist. He warms his hands on the embers of my belly, his head bent into the heat of my neck.

"What are you doing?" he asks.

"I'm waiting," I say. "For my phoenix."