The reinsertion was very quick indeed. No anaesthetic or anything. They just wheel you in, spread your legs, and squirt them up. It’s incredibly low tech really when you consider the dazzling medical science that has led up to it. First they show you the fertilized embryos on a little telly screen, then a big tube appears on the screen (actually it’s about a hair’s breadth) and sucks them up. Then a nurse brings the tube through to the doctor (it’s like a very long thin syringe). The doctor puts it up your fanny and, guided by an ultrasound picture, she injects the embryos into your womb. It takes about a minute unless the embryos get stuck in the tube, which they didn’t with us.

It’s a hell of a lot easier than the egg extraction. The only real discomfort is that they make you do it with a full bladder because for some reason this makes for a clearer picture. Afterwards they won’t let you wee for about three quarters of an hour, which is absolutely excruciating and you keep feeling that the terrible pressure must be crushing the life out of your poor embryos.

Then they let you go home. As we were getting ready to leave, Charles, the nurse, came in with a printout of the computer image of our two embryos, both of which were already dividing into further cells.

“This is them,” he said. “Good luck.”

When we got home Sam made some tea and I just sat in the sitting room staring at the photo, thinking that this could be the first photo in an album of our children’s lives. It’s not many kids who get to see themselves when they were only two or three cells big.

Sam reminded me that the chances are that these ones won’t either and I know that, of course, but I’m sure that mental attitude has an effect on the physical self. I know I can’t will it to happen, but the least I can do is give Dick and Debbie the most positive start in life that I can.

Yes, all right, I’ve given them names! And I’m not embarrassed about it either. They’re mine, aren’t they? They exist, don’t they? At least they did when the picture was taken. And now? Who knows? I could see that Sam was not at all sure about personalizing things in this way. But why not? They’re fertilized embryos! That’s a huge step for us. Something we might easily not have been able to do. We have to be positive, we’re so far down the road.

Sam reminded me yet again that it’s only a one in five chance. Well, I know! I know. Of course the odds are long, but they’re not impossible. Twenty per cent isn’t a bad shot. When my photo was taken they were alive.

“Think about that, Sam,” I said. “Two living entities created from you and me. All they have to do now is hang on inside for a few days. They just have to hang on.”

It’s funny, but Lucy’s enthusiasm, the strength of her will, is infectious. Because the more I looked at that photo, the more real those two little translucent splodges became. They are, after all, already embryos. They’ve already passed the beginning of life. And I couldn’t deny that in a way they looked pretty tough, I mean for three-celled organisms, that is, obviously.

“Of course they’re tough,” said Lucy. “Think what they’ve been through already! Sucked out of me by vacuum cleaner, pumped out of you into a cold plastic pot. Whirled around in a centrifuge, shaken up until they bash into each other, smeared on a microscope slide then sucked up again and squirted through a syringe. It’s a positive assault course. Dick and Debbie are SAS material!”

She’s right, of course. If they do make it back out of her they’re going to be either commandos or circus performers. And they might make it. They could make it. I mean, why the hell shouldn’t they? If they can just hang on for a few more days while they grow a few more cells.

Then Lucy whispered at her stomach.

“Come on, Dick and Debbie,” she said. It was sort of as a joke, but I could see that she meant it, so I said it too but louder.

“Come on, Dick and Debbie!”

Then we started shouting it.

Funny, really, the two of us sitting there, laughing and shouting at Lucy’s stomach.

Whatever happens now, that was a good thing to do.

Dear Penny

I wonder if this will be the last sad letter that I ever write you? The long wait is coming to an end. One more vaginal suppository is all I have to take (there’s been nine, plus three more spikes in the bum). I hope Dick and Debbie realize what I’m going through for them. Sam says that if they’re as tough as we hope they are, in eight and a half months I’ll be able to tell them. I hope we’re not hoping too much. It’s only a one in five chance, after all.

Sam said that any child of mine would be one in a million.

Then we kissed for ages.

I can’t deny that I feel good. I’m not even slightly periodic and normally I can feel my period coming for a week. Sam agrees that that has to be a very good sign.

Oh well, the day after tomorrow we’ll have the blood test and then we’ll know. I’ve made Sam promise that he’ll take the day off. He’s been working so hard recently (God knows what on – Charlie Stone just seems to say the first thing that comes into his head, which is usually “knob”). Anyway, I definitely don’t want to get the news alone.

After we had kissed, Sam got very serious and said that when it’s all over, for better or… well, hopefully for better, he wants to talk. I said fine and he said, “No, really talk, about the last few months, and all that we’ve been feeling and going through together.” This is a very encouraging sign for me because as I’ve said before, Sam is not always the most communicative of people. He says he wants to talk about where he wants to go as a writer and what sacrifices we would both have to make for it and, well, lots of other things.

He says he wants to go away this weekend. Whatever the news is and… well, talk.

I said that I thought it was a great idea. We can take Dick and Debbie on their first trip.

We thought about that for a while and then we kissed again and then he said he loved me and I said I love him and there was more kissing and Sam put his head on my tummy, where it is now. One thing is for sure: whatever happens, whether Dick and Debbie make it or not, IVF has been good for Sam and me. It’s really brought us closer together.

It’s twelve-thirty at night. Lucy and I have had a lovely evening together and we’ve agreed to go away together next weekend. I’ll tell her everything then.

She’s been asleep for an hour now. But I couldn’t sleep because as I lay there thinking about Dick and Debbie I decided on the way my film is going to end. I’ve just written it up and faxed it to Ewan, who, as far as I know, never goes to bed.

INT. DAY. COLIN AND RACHEL’S HOUSE.

The news comes in the afternoon. Colin and Rachel are sitting, anxiously awaiting a phonecall. They take strength from each other’s presence. They hold hands. The phone rings. Colin tries to answer it but Rachel is holding his hands too tightly. There’s a moment of comedy and emotion as Colin has to remove a hand from Rachel’s traumatized grip in order to pick up the receiver. He listens for a moment. In Rachel’s eyes we see the hope and the fear of her entire life. Colin smiles, a smile so big, so broad it seems to fill the screen. He says, “Thank you,” and puts the phone down. He looks at Rachel, she looks at him, he says, “They made it.” The End.

That’s it. Whatever happens to Lucy and me, that’s the end of my movie. It’s the ending I felt tonight, the ending I want.

Ewan just phoned. I hope he didn’t wake Lucy.

“It’s mawkish, over-sentimental, middle-class English shite,” he said. “I love it.”