It's The Question Every Woman Asks Herself...

By Evan-Amos

...when she can't get pregnant. Why her and not me?

There are expectant mothers everywhere you look. Believe me, I know. My first baby didn’t arrive until I’d been married for nearly ten years. It's a painful subject, and one that splits opinion straight down the middle. Clare Rayner the agony aunt said most of her mail began with either the words; "I'm desperate for a baby", or "I'm in trouble, and I don't want to be."

These two problems have been around for as long as there have been people to suffer from them. There was proof of this in Dr Suzannah Lipscomb's recent TV documentary about the affair and later marriage of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn.

As a young girl, Anne Boleyn was lady-in-waiting to Queen Claude of France. Claude married into the French royal family at the age of fourteen. Her next years were spent in an endless round of pregnancy and childbirth, and she died at the age of twenty-four. 

In contrast, Anne Boleyn turned out to be anything but a baby-machine. Miscarriages and still-births couldn’t satisfy King Henry VIII's desire for a son. The unhappy couple must have asked themselves over and over again why a frail, joyless girl like Claude could have created a family so easily. Despite all their glamorous advantages in life, Henry and Anne never managed to produce the male heir England wanted. Anne was only survived by one child–a little girl, who eventually became Queen Elizabeth I. Henry never had a legitimate son until he married Jane Seymour. 

Those are the facts, but while watching the TV documentary I was struck by an idea for the perfect plot-twist for a novel. Who says television isn’t educational? When a man marries his mistress he creates a vacancy. When a high-flying woman marries the top man, she stirs up a conflict. With everyone asking when they're going to start a family, the pressure can only increase...

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