Our six months turned into about a year because at Christmas, T asked me to marry him. Atop a mountain, clad in head to toe waterproofs, in the sideways sleety rain in the Highlands of Scotland. And, reader, I said yes.

I have never been a weddingy person. The white dress dream with all the froth and frills isn’t my thing. We had no intention of following the traditional path. We’re not anti-weddings but on the list of priorities it comes well below buying a house, doing it up, and having kids. But best laid plans… Life doesn’t always work out the way you think it will. Somewhat ironically, we ended up doing things conventionally. And because of the insecurities trying to conceive stirs up, I found I needed it in a way I had never really envisaged. My shell wasn’t as hard as I thought it was. This official seal of love and support gave me strength and security.

We got hitched in the Summer, on our ten year anniversary, and it meant a huge amount. Much more, I think, because of what we were going through. We were saying to each other for better, for worse. We will weather this. Even if we can’t have a baby, we want to be together and celebrate this moment.

But planning a wedding did put the mockers on other proceedings. Neither of us wanted a long engagement, our reason being that we’d never get around to doing the deed. We decided to take time out rather than trying to juggle it all. Going through fertility treatment at the same time would have been too much. Wedding planning does not exactly put you in a relaxed, stress free frame of mind either. Besides, we wanted to have fun at our wedding! Drink champagne. Let our hair down. Have a massive party with all our family and friends. Plus, thinking practically, we wanted to go to Borneo for our honeymoon which meant jabs and long haul flights. So, one thing at a time. We took this time for us. You only get married once. We took our lives off hold.

That said, of course optimistic (and romantic) me was still hoping for it just to happen. A secret part of my mind kept thinking, it will happen when you least expect it, when we’ve practically given up. Then it will be such a nice problem to have! What an amazing wedding present it would be! But zip. Not on our holiday in the Summer. Nor our trip to Scotland. The months ticked by. I remember, cruelly, my period was late and it was the day before our wedding. I was hopeful. We were prepping the venue and I looked down and I had bled through my shorts. It was horrible, a crushing, exposed, vulnerable moment but I borrowed some spare trousers that my Mum had in her car and kept going. Maybe a honeymoon baby. But it wasn’t to be, and as soon as the malaria tablets were out of my system, we headed back to the Ocean Suite in the Autumn just over a year later.