Already arranged to follow my appointment with Growing Generations was a visit to Reproductive Technology Laboratories ten miles away in Santa Monica to leave a semen sample. The Pontiac smelled even more of vomit. I was on autopilot. As we drove along the Boulevard with the ‘t’ missing, I said to Ian, ‘What’s the point? If there’s no surrogate, there’s no reason to go to this place.’

We were supposed to head west to Sepulaveda. When that failed to appear, we realised we had been heading east. I phoned to apologise for being late. The US service culture switched into action. No problem. ‘What the hell. There’s nothing else to do’. We drove on and swept into the underground garage beneath RTL’s building. Both of us went to their office. We were invited to go into their special room. ‘Oh, Ian wants to do some shopping, thanks. It’s just me.’ In I went.

As we had come from Growing Generations, the room had been specially prepared. On the TV was a fuzzy videotaped image of two well-endowed young men wearing nothing but chains vigorously trying to remove them from each other. I looked away and studied the dark blue sofa and carpet. They were perfectly clean. No tell-tale stains. I dropped my clothes onto them and stood in this perfectly normal reception room in an utterly bizarre situation thousands of miles from home and a world away from everything I was used to. ‘Abstinence for at least three days’ had been the instructions from RTL. It took me no time to deliver the goods and I left the two young men, now unchained, to explore their chafe marks. I presented my pot to the charming lady at the counter and watched her label it. Would I ever see the contents again?

‘Well that’s a waste of time’, I said to Ian. I hummed ‘I left my heart in San Francisco’ and changed the words to ‘sperm in Santa Monica’. We drove along the sea front and then back to Beverley Hills. It was 8 pm. Time for bed. I threw up all night. It had all been too much.

To kill time while hoping my mobile would ring with some alternative agency, we spent the next day at Universal Studios in Hollywood. Ian was more optimistic than I was. My phone had remained silent. ‘One day we’ll come back here with my daughter and your child’. I did not believe it.

Back home in Britain, I e-mailed Will Halm asking him to re-consider. No chance. He told me he had mentioned me to a woman called Vivian Leslie and that I would hear from her. I waited for a week, then I did.

'We want grapes, please,' said Lars. 'You let us have some five minutes ago when we were a baby.'

'You can have the bad ones,' Ian said, looking critically at the grapes in his bowl and picking out those that had lost their bloom. 'Bad ones are NICE.' He passed several to Piers who dropped them on the floor when he thought Daddy's attention was elsewhere. 'They've got coughs in them', Piers said by way of explanation.

'Lollies make your ears grow big,' said Lars, apropos nothing at all. 'You're fat.' He was poking a finger into Ian's stomach.

'Ian's nicely plump. The big bad wolf would like to eat him up.'

'Can you phone the big bad wolf then, please, Daddy?' said Lars. When that possibility was denied, he looked mournful. Lars had a capacity for melancholy. 'It's my last day.' His words carried with them a finality that sat awkwardly on the lips of a healthy four-and-a-half year-old. 'It's my last day'.

'Where did that come from, Lars?'

'Nursery'. He made his lower lip quiver. 'It's my last day.'

The penny dropped. 'One of the staff is leaving?'

'Yes. They all are.'

It felt like that. The Manager who had been there since they started had disappeared overnight. Children left at a moment's notice. Staff tended to prepare their charges for their change, but the last day was clearly a frequent event. One or two remained constant, but when the time came for them to leave, I realised that of those who were there when they had started two years before, only one person had remained. Their brothers and their Daddy were the constant people in their lives.

'It makes me feel seasick.'

'Maybe just a bit sad, darling. But change is part of life. People come and go.' To amuse myself, I added, 'Talking of Michaelangelo.'

Not picking up on the literary reference, Piers turned to me. 'Is seasick like homesick?'

'What do you think homesick is then, Piers?'

'It's when you feel sick and you don't know which way home is and you get lost.'

Well, it's really something else altogether, but I wouldn't worry about that for now, if I were you.'

Piers raised both hands palms forward and shook them like a Black and White Minstrels chorus line. He shook his head. Something had happened that he profoundly disagreed with. He liked everything to be just so. His expression changed to one of smugness. I had seen it before. He knew he was about to score a point.

'You can't say that.'

'Can't say what?'

'You can't say 'I were'. It's 'I was'.'

'Come off it, Piers, you're going to have to get up early in the morning to catch Daddy out on a point of grammar. It's 'I were' in this case.' I thought I would rub it in. 'You use the subjunctive after 'if'.' He did not look crestfallen. '...and verbs of wishing and hoping.'

Not be completely outdone, he turned at once to Ian. Gently and in a lilt, as if to a baby, he said, 'Now, Ian, watch my mouth. Say 'snowman'.'

Ian had been telling me that Lars had been gnawing while he was leaping. 'I think it's 'snoring while he was sleeping', Ian. All that leaping sounds rather energetic for a Sunday morning. You're going to have to work on your sibilants. Try 'snowman'.

'No man'.

'Not 'no man'. It's 'sssnowman'.'

'SSSnot no man.'

'Dadee-y-y...' Intonation falling, then rising, then falling again, the last syllable made into three, Piers was demanding attention. 'Ian kicked me.'

'I'm not surprised, Piers. You can't patronise Ian like that. Telling him to watch your mouth, indeed. Whatever next? And don't whinge. Now, Ian, don't let Piers upset you. He's only a child.'

'Not a human,' added Lars.

My sons were revelling in the glorious innocence of their childhood, exploring language, relationships, just being little boys. How I hoped it would last for them - as my own childhood had not.