Nearly one in five women in the UK are now childless at 40, many involuntarily. Among them was the writer and teacher Blanche Girouard, and she desperately wanted a baby. In this audio diary, she charts her journey from the decision to have a child from an anonymous donor, via IVF treatment in December 2019 and her pregnancy during the Covid-19 lockdown, to holding her miracle baby in her arms for Christmas this year.