GRIEVING FOR THE CHILDREN I NEVER HAD

After her dreams of motherhood were crushed by cancer, Julie Lewin, 55, had to find a way to cope

Playing hide and seek with my niece and nephew, I smiled as they shrieked with excitement. I loved spending time with Natasha, then seven, and Taylor, three. It was December 1996 and, aged 27, I was enjoying single life but had always known that I wanted to have a family one day. In fact, I'd already picked out names for my future babies: Harrison for a boy and Maddison Mae for a girl, or Harry and Maddy for short. For now, though, I was focusing on my admin career.

Only, after a skiing holiday the following month, I had flu-like symptoms and unexplained bruises, then a hospital blood test in January 1997 brought some devastating news.

'You have leukaemia,' a specialist explained, as I wept tears of disbelief.

Further tests revealed acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) in over 90% of my body, and I began months of chemotherapy at St Barts Hospital, London, which left me drained and barely eating, with my weight plummeting to 7st. I suffered complications including infections, and my long hair fell out in clumps, taking with it my sense of femininity.

My parents Eileen, then 53, and Jim, 58, visited every day, travelling from their home in Essex, and my sister Lisa, then 33, and brother Brad, then 25, came often too to cheer me up. And they sometimes brought Natasha and Taylor - it always made me happy to see their smiling faces.

In April 1997, my oncologist recommended a stem cell transplant, but I was distraught when he warned that it would plunge me into early menopause. The medication, chemotherapy and radiotherapy used was so strong that it would stop my periods permanently.

With a jolt, it hit me that I'd never have children of my own, and I shook my head and refused to sign the consent form. For two weeks, I was at loggerheads with the doctors, despite my distraught parents begging me to reconsider.

STRAIGHT TALKING