This is the diary of Melanie, 40, and Tim who is 39. They have been married for six 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 eight diary

Well, Christmas is over and a brand New Year is here. We can't quite believe it's 2003 already! I remember at School we used to think that the year 2000 was so far away, and here we are in 2003 already. It is true - time does go quicker when you're older!

Obviously we've had no contact with Susan, our social worker, over Christmas, which is what we'd expected anyway. Christmas does tend to heighten your desire for children when you see what magic it holds for them.

It was lovely seeing our nieces and our friends' children over Christmas and how excited they were about it all. Many a time over the break, we pondered over whether this could be our last Christmas "on our own". Who knows the year could bring?!

We spent the break mostly with our families and had a lovely time. We saw the pantomime just before Christmas and it was superb - extremely funny and great to join in with all the "It's behind you" and hissing and booing. We ate too much, drank too much, and the only thing on my mind at the moment is dieting and the gym!

Mind you, Christmas was not without incident - our central heating boiler had a "major malfunction" and we were without heating and hot water for two days. Then, to cap it all, my little "on it's last legs" car blew its head gasket on New Year's Day!

Anyway, we've decided to just live our lives as normal until we get that phone call, so yesterday we booked tickets to go and see Sum 41 in three weeks time. Although I'm 40 already and Tim is 40 this year, as far as our musical tastes are concerned, we're pretty diverse, so we thought that going to a proper mad rock concert would be a great experience.

We'll let you know how it goes!! We must be crackers! We're also thinking of booking a week away in September, around the time of Tim's birthday, but only somewhere in the UK so that it would be easy for a "small person" to join us if necessary.

We could have travelled the world this year guesting at weddings if we'd wanted - we have friends marrying in Australia, Cyprus and Las Vegas this year! Mind you, if our numbers come up, then we've told them all we'll be there!