"Here, this'll do..." Sal braked sharply and backed up a short farm track almost hidden between the hedgerows. I glanced out of the back window: an audience of a dozen sheep behind an iron gate didn't seem to pose too much of a problem. First things first: milky. Luna couldn't go more than what seemed like ten minutes or so without complaining of being on the verge of dehydration. I got her out of the car seat and fed her whilst Sal scuffled around on the back seat trying to find a way of getting her pelvis propped up higher than her bottom. A discreet way (given the fact that half way into a farmer's field or not, we were still parked on the edge of a well-used narrow country lane).
The thing is, when your sperm donor lives a 90-minute drive away, and after a visit to the grandparents, you happen to be passing - on ovulation day - it's too good an opportunity to miss. Luna was two and a half months old and this baby thing had been pretty straightforward so far. Time for another. So we called in for a cup of tea and a donation.
It was the second time Luna's sperm donor had held her. We sat drinking tea, eating fancy turnip crisps and discussing the weather, while he held her, a cuddly bundle of his own genes...and then passed her back. And once again I silently acknowledged how much, in that little sample pot, he had given us.
And an hour later, there we were: backed up against the farmer's field with a baby, a syringe and another little sample pot. We had to do it while it was still warm. So after waiting for a couple of cyclists to pass, we got on and did it: a roadside insemination. And when we set off again I wondered. I wondered three things. One: had we been seen? Two: when would Luna start to cry for milky again? And three: a potential due date before Luna's first birthday - what on earth were we thinking?