Sol moved back home and turned to his friends for help. Judith arrived with leaflets and tried talking about adoption with her. Catrin refused to discuss the subject. Then, a week later, Lana turned up with a bottle of tequila in hand, telling Cat what she needed was a night on the razz to pull her out of herself and that having children wasn’t the be-all and end-all. Catrin screamed at her and Lana scuttled off with her tail between her legs.

That night, Catrin broke down in Sol’s arms and wept herself into a weary state of acceptance. It was over. It was time to stop. And despite being couched in a blanket of sorrow, to surrender felt strangely liberating. It brought the two of them closer together than they’d been in a very long while. They made love that night for the first time in months.

She took six weeks off work and promised her family and friends that she would start to look after herself again. She cleaned the house from top to bottom and brought brochures back from the travel agent – she and Sol needed a holiday. She shopped for healthy, wholesome foods and even made bread in her long-abandoned breadmaker. She knew she needed to gain a few pounds – she’d lost so much weight through sadness and self-neglect. So much so that when her period didn’t come that month, she presumed weight loss was the reason. Sol had taken to making hearty cooked breakfasts in an attempt to coax back Catrin’s appetite. And then one Wednesday morning, she sat and looked at the plate in front of her, oozing bacon, eggs and mushrooms, little rivulets of butter running between them all …

… and she leapt up and ran for the bathroom. It had been such a long, long time coming, but when they were least expecting it, the rain had stopped and the sun had finally peeped out from behind the clouds, just like her dad had said it would.

Three tests later they were rewarded with the news they’d come to believe they’d never receive: Catrin was pregnant.

They didn’t tell a soul until they’d had the sixteen-week scan, too terrified to jinx things. But when Catrin’s increasing waistline could no longer be hidden under smock tops and XXL T-shirts, they decided to take the plunge and announce it. Even then they didn’t dare get too excited, and Catrin forbade her mother to even think about knitting bootees.

And then, on 26 August 2004, Romy Amelia Eliza Blythe came bouncing into their world. This precious, precious cargo – too precious for Catrin to allow anyone else to hold, except Sol and their parents. For weeks after she was born, Catrin would stand over the cot, watching every breath and checking the rise and fall of her daughter’s tiny chest. But gradually she learned to let go and let Romy grow, and to accept that she could never protect her from every challenge life would throw her way. And she was better at it now – another reason she’d agreed to the christening. She knew she should have done it sooner, but better late than never.