JUST WHEN I'D GIVEN UP HOPE

Kelly Larson, 59, thought she was too old to have the baby she so longed for

- JENNY ACKLAND, LUCY LAING

Coming out of the bathroom, I shook my head sadly and my husband – also called Kelly – pulled me in for a hug.

‘It’ll happen next month,’ he said.

We’d got married in August 1986, after meeting at college. And at first, we spent many an evening chatting over dinner, imagining what our future family would be like. ‘I want five kids,’ I smiled.

With five siblings of my own, that seemed perfect to me. ‘Whoa,’ Kelly would laugh. ‘Three would be more than enough for me.’

HOPES FADE AWAY

But now, after trying for a couple of years, it felt like our dream of having a family might never come true.

Watching my friends all having children with ease made me wonder why the same wasn’t happening for me. I’d had two miscarriages, each one feeling like a bereavement to me.

‘What is wrong with my body?’ I cried to Kelly. ‘Maybe it’s me,’ he said gently. But even our doctor wasn’t sure.

All the tests came back with was that I had ‘unexplained infertility’ and my hope of becoming a mum faded away.

Five years after we’d married, I was talking to a friend of mine who had also struggled to get pregnant and had eventually adopted a baby.

It got me thinking. All I wanted was a child to love – surely it didn’t really matter that it was my own flesh and blood? So, in 1991, after the eight-month long adoption process, we got the call we’d been waiting for.

‘We have a little girl for you,’ the adoption worker said to us. ‘She is just one month old.’