This is the diary of Melanie, 40, and Tim who is 39. They have been married for 6 years and despite three IVF attempts have been unable to have children naturally.

Tim and Melanie were approved for adoption for one child up to the age of three in June 2002.

The diary begins after the couple were approved.

Week 2

Well, last time we wrote, we had just had the shock of being handed our first Form E for a child. I think we've just about recovered!

Just after our meeting with our social worker Susan that night, she went away on holiday, but beforehand called us to say that she had arranged for us all to meet the little boy's social worker, and to say that she was still waiting for the details to come through on the little girl she'd mentioned.

We had a bit breathing space whilst Susan was on holiday, so we decided to try to put it all to the back of our minds for a while. That was until we visited Asda one Saturday....

Now I should explain to you that Tim and I laugh about the funniest things - I think that being able to have a good laugh has got us through all the hard times, and particularly the fertility treatment.

Well, we were off doing our normal shopping around our local Asda, and I wandered off (as we girls do) to have a look at all the hair products (Tim cannot understand the female fascination with different styling products!).

Tim then appeared around the corner looking a bit sheepish, and sidled up to me and whispered "You remember what Susan said during the home study.... you know..... about using protection if we were linked with a child ...... well..... I suppose we ought to think about it".

So, a minute later, there we were, in the aisle with the condoms all on the bottom shelf, trying to look nonchalant as if we were looking at the razors above and giggling like a couple of school children. I think the funniest thing was that the pregnancy testing kits were right next to them!

This guy came up, calm as you like, picked a box up and off he went - he must have been about 20. I thought to myself; he's buying those because he doesn't want a child, and we're buying them because we do!

Anyway, on a more serious note, I think that the worst thing over this time has been the fact that we made the decision not to tell anyone about these possibilities. We decided that at this stage anything could happen, and it was bad enough raising our own hopes, without raising those of all our families and friends too.

We know from others' experiences how you can go as far as being matched with children, then something happens and it all falls apart. At this early stage, we just didn't want to put everyone through the mill, but more importantly, we needed to make sure that any decisions we made were right for us.

After all, we are going to be the ones who will have to deal with everything at the end of the day. It's so difficult telling everyone that you've heard nothing when you have! Every time a parent calls, or you meet a friend, it's the first thing they say ... "Have you heard anything yet?". We feel really bad, because I am sure people think that Susan can't be doing her job properly, when, in fact, she's doing it extremely well!

The little boy has never really been all that far from our thoughts over this time. We went on a boat trip recently and there were twin boys on seats up ahead of us, just basically thrilled to bits and excited about being on the boat. We looked at one another and could tell what each other was thinking .... Is he around that age? Would he be that tall? Would he be as excited about being on a boat? You can't stop thinking about it however hard you try!

After her holiday, Tim rang Susan to update some contact phone numbers for us, and she mentioned that she has not had any contact back from the little girl's social worker, so we could probably draw a line through that one.

She did say that there was another child she was trying to get details on, and would be in touch. We've not heard from her yet, and our appointment with the little boy's social worker is now at the end of this week.

We sat down tonight and re-read the Form E, got out our Checklist for Approved Adopters from Adoption UK, and wrote some questions down to ask. It's a difficult one for us - aside from everything, the little boy is at the top of our age range.

We always imagined that we would probably adopt a "toddler" age child - this little one will be at school this time next year. But then again, age aside, he sounds a lovely child.

Should age be a real deciding factor? How long would we have to wait if we turned down this opportunity? What would our social worker and placement team think of us if we did turn him down just based on age? They never said it would be easy ........!!