I sat down tonight with the intention to jot down a few paragraphs about a story people are continuously begging me to tell – the birth of my daughter. It’s not exactly the ordinary, run of the mill birth story – she was born in the middle of a cyclone evacuation and it’s not a story to be told with a lot of flowery positive adjectives.

I started to write about her birth, but then I realised that the whole context of how overwhelmingly horrible the experience was could only be understood if I wrote about the entire journey of trying to have children.

I spent four hours tonight reliving the past three years in graphic, unpleasant detail. I’m not sure who I was really writing it for – sure, people have been asking me to write it for weeks now, but I think I really needed to write it all out and experience it all as a whole for myself as well. Going back over it all in minute detail certainly cemented my thoughts about having more children – I will never voluntarily sign up for that again!

I was asked twice when she was born if I would consent to a media interview. I declined both times, so I’m not going to publish it here. My husband thinks I should just change the names of people in it and do it anyway because it is a good story – small miracles, traumatic events and ultimately a happy outcome – but I know people would still link it with me as half the town knows that I was the woman who was evacuated and I don’t want the media to get a hold of it, even though their interest is pretty much passed now. If anyone is genuinely interested in reading it, I’d be happy to email it.

I’m quite happy with that effort – 6500 words in a night is no small feat! It has proven to me that when sufficiently motivated, I actually can do it. Now that’s out of the way, I guess it’s back to the novel…