and then it hit me.

You know in those cheesy coming-of-age films, how there is always the huge Moment of Choice, the Moment When Everything Changed? When Kevin Arnold makes his favourite observation: And then it hit me..?

We always complain that life is not like that. Not neat, not tidy - that there's no closure in real life. And maybe this is true. But still, we recognise these moments when we feel them happening to us. We know when something's going to be big.

The day we found out about all this was like that. (All this. A healthy euphemism.)

I didn't expect it, that's for sure. It had only been eight months of "trying" when we had the initial consultation. Real trying, though - we're talking charting, temping, opks. We're talking laboured, bona fide "TTC". I had expected the doc to say "Go away, crazy lady. Come back in another four months when you might have a REAL issue." After all, I'd never had any women's problems - not really - and my fella already had two kids from a previous relationship. But she didn't. Instead she sent us for tests.

Presumably she was humouring me too.

When the results were ready, maybe three weeks later, I even went to the doctor alone. That's how certain I was. I was braced for the usual irritating piece of advice: Stop trying so hard, and it will happen.

When I walked into her office at the surgery, she was looking at my blood test results. Pages of them. She went through quickly, ticking, ticking, ticking: Progesterone wonderful... free testosterone looks good... iron levels a bit low but normal... you're definitely ovulating... yes, everything looks fine.

No surprises then.

She looked up. Smiled.

So I asked.

Have the results of the semen analysis come through yet?

Here is how it happened after that, moment for moment: The doctor got out of the swivel-chair, went into reception, and called pathology for a fax. The phone rang. I heard the spit of the printer, the plastic zipping of the lines, left to right, left to right, left to right. One page through. Click.

I looked out the window as I waited. Ferns. Birds. The sounds of school children leaving the primary school. Mothers. Comforting three-thirty sounds.

And a moment later, behind me in the doorway, the hmm of the doctor looking at the sheet that had arrived.

Hmm.

I knew right then that it was going to be big.