This hub is is probably going to be a long story so I may have to break it down into several separate entries. It is a very personal tale from a down to earth man who was confronted with some extraordinary events and was forced to reconsider a belief in miracles and the wonder of life.

It is just one of my stories, but for me, maybe the best story.It is a story of hope, and, as Stephen King once said in one of his epic tales, "hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things". Much of what I am going to put into words will be familiar to millions, some of it won't, but I know it will resonate with parents and, hopefully, some children too.

I guess as good a place to begin as any is 31 December, 2007. My wife and I had packed a picnic feast of wine and cheese and all sorts of mouthwatering treats,and headed down to our favorite beach on Grand Cayman, well off the tourist path, with its own jetty, where we planned to celebrate the coming of another year. It is one of the most vivid memories of any new year celebration in my list of forty five.

We sat on that dock and watched the sunset, and we sat for hours more talking and laughing and loving - life and each other. The night wrapped us in warmth and the black velvet of a Caribbean night sky, the stars bright the ocean an inky whisper punctuated by the urgency of the waves breaking over the reef some distance offshore. In that magical soft darkness we were just two small counterpoints to the infinite wonder of life. We watched a few revellers come and go, but we were left in peace at the end of the jetty with the warm Caribbean lapping at our feet. Life had been good to us in the past twelve months and the promise of life held so much for us both. Like most people we have both had our struggles in life, but we felt we had much to be thankful for.

The fireworks started prematurely, some time before the clocks struck midnight and amongst the bangs and whistles of countless parties along the shoreline, we gazed up at the heavens and said our thanks for all we had been blessed with. We talked about our plans for the next calendar year, we dreamed, and we asked for a little help with those dreams too.

It was a beautiful night, and one we would return to time and time again in the year ahead.

Fast forward to the beginning of March, 2008. We were just settling into a new home, rented but perfect. My wife, who has not enjoyed the best of health for most of her life, had been feeling very unwell and in the course of a conversation with her sister, had considered the fact that she might be pregnant.

When she arrived home and told me this, I pretty much dismissed it. We had no plans for a family, but it was more than that. Years before we met, she had been told by countless medical experts that she would never have a child. Back then she had refused to believe them and had undergone a barrage of fertility treatments. Children were her life and her greatest yearning back then, was to be a mother. She once told me that as a little girl she had dreamed of having eleven sons, the number required for a cricket team! That seemed to be just another one of those dreams that life makes a call on and decides will remain unrealized. Sometimes a wistful tear would roll down her cheek when we talked about those unfulfilled hopes from long ago but as with all the other knocks life had given her she bore it with incredible strength.

We had a long discussion and decided that it would do no harm to get a pregnancy testing kit, to put her mind at rest. I just considered it a process of elimination. We had been together for several years and the chances of us conceiving seemed less than remote. The very next day she visited the pharmacy.

On the following day, I was woken early. I shall never forget it. My wife's words, "you're going to be a daddy", didn't register at first and then I thought she was joking. Then I realized she wasn't. I was still half asleep and took the proffered plastic thingy and looked at the two pink lines. I think I said something really sweet and romantic like "are you sure you peed on it right?" but I don't recall my exact words.

We were shocked. Actually, that's not a strong enough word, dumbfounded might be better. You have to understand that we had given up on the idea of kids a long time ago. Me because my first wife was not interested in children and I felt that I was way past the sensible age to become a dad, and she because the medical profession had assured her that children were never going to be on the cards for her.

I guess we felt a little like a couple of teenagers who had been caught out. I think that subsequent to that morning my wife took six more pregnancy tests. Funnily enough, every one was positive. By then I was more than certain she had mastered the art of peeing with pinpoint accuracy.

Now I know this should have been a joyous moment for us both, a happy occasion, made even more so by it being against all the odds, but we were both shell shocked and more than a little scared by the turn of events. It took us about two weeks to adjust and accept that we were going to have a baby. Readers may or may not understand why we felt the way we did, both those who have been there themselves and those who have not. It was the first of many times we looked back on New Year's Eve and considered how much the man upstairs had been chuckling as we asked for his blessings, shared our wishes and made our plans.

Eventually, after visiting a doctor and knowing for sure that new life was indeed taking shape inside my beautiful girl, we embarked on the planning that all parents-to-be have gone through. We put aside a large chunk of money for the medical bills to come and broke the news to friends and family. We spent a lot of scared nights full of worry about our mom and dad abilities, or, more commonly our perceived lack of them. But the joy had overcome the fear, we acted like loons and laughed and smiled about our fortunes and the twists and turns of our lives together. The highs were outgunning the lows by a country mile, and it seemed to us that ours was indeed a match made in heaven.

We had our first ultrasound, we heard our baby's heartbeat, we laughed and cried together on countless occasions. We worried and we were happy in equal measure. Each time we saw our "beanie" on the ultrasound monitor we felt like millions of others have felt before us and will continue to do as long as mankind exists. But things were not destined to be normal for us, or our precious baby, "beanie".

My wife's health was suffering. I was afraid for her, but like all men, I was probably selfishly more afraid for myself. As the weeks passed she became worse, and was confined to bed by her doctor. Rest, rest and more rest she was told. I did what I could during this time, feeling useless and wishing I could do more. Feeling guilty and responsible for my wife's suffering. I would sit outside at night, smoking and fretting about everything, occasionally shedding some quiet tears as I gazed up at the stars. I thought I was tough, but seeing my brave and beautiful partner enduring so much, I knew that I was not the tough one here. I think her suffering made my love for her so much stronger, the fear of losing her or our child like a stone in my chest. I had to consider, for the first time in my life, how such a loss, experienced by many, might feel. It is, believe me, a terrifying and awesomely bleak thing to think about.

One morning my wife roused me from bed and she was in worse pain than ever and she was bleeding badly. I rushed her to the doctor's office, fearing and expecting the worst but after seeing my wife, the doctor was concerned but confirmed that "beanie" was still fine. My wife cried on hearing the baby's heart, pounding away as strongly as ever. We went home with more prescriptions and instructions for more bed rest.

By the tail end of May, things had improved a little and my wife asked that we take a short drive to the beach. Despite all that she had been through, she was still thinking of me. I knew she was doing it because she felt that we both deserved a little R&R and because she knew I would love to do something we loved doing together. She assured me that she was genuinely feeling OK, so, we climbed into the car and took a short drive to a very deserted place on the northwestern tip of the island. It was a beautiful day. I got us settled under the shade of a large Casuarina tree and we sat on our towel and talked for hours. I walked the long stretch of sand alone, leaving my girl reading in the shade and I walked back with hope in my heart. I swam for a while and flopped down beside her to dry off in the breeze and talk some more. Things seemed more perfect than ever and we were reluctant to leave having missed these times so much over the past months. We wondered how our "beanie" would like the beach, we talked about and to that overactive little newcomer under that tree as we watched the boats out beyond the white foam at the edge of the reef.

Finally we began to gather our things and as we brushed off the sand and shook out our gear she suddenly cried out. I looked up startled and saw the pain and fear in her eyes. I will never forget that moment as long as I live. I went to her and she almost fell. "It's the worst ever......" she said, "I think this is bad......" I walked her very slowly to our car, not knowing what to do as she clung to my arm. We drove back towards home. all the time she was moaning and crying softly, desperately trying to control her pain and her fear. We got her home and into bed, but sadly, this time bed rest was not going to be enough. When I eventually persuaded her to go to the hospital, I knew for sure that things were serious. She doesn't give in to hospitals easily.

That drive is another abiding memory, and the events that followed will never be forgotten. My wife was around twenty two weeks pregnant.

George Town hospital emergency room was where we found oursleves at the tail end of that beautiful day. I stayed by her side, trying to offer support, comfort, anything I had, knowing it wasn't much and that we were in the hands of the doctor's and the good Lord at this point.

Various needles, lines, tests went by in a blur and when a female doctor appeared to deliver the news I braced myself for the worst. That worst duly came with the words she spoke next. Her bedside manner was remarkable, and I could see the emotion in her eyes as well as hear it in her voice. She confirmed that Nikki was losing her baby as she lay there on that hospital bed, that all they could do was make her as comfortable as possible. The condolences were as sincere as they come, but for my brave and beautiful partner the dam inside her reserves of courage and faith was breaking as I stood beside her. When your heart breaks for another is the hardest break of all. Comfort in those moments is hard to find and even more difficult to offer. We cried together and the medical staff left discreetly to allow us that moment of intense pain together.

I can't recall how long we stayed in that cubicle. I wiped her brow, kissed her tears, held onto her hand, feeling that there should be more that I could offer wondering why such an incredibly beautiful, strong and loving person should have to endure all she had overcome in her life. When you got right down to it, all she had was a weeping and shaky husband with a voice inside screaming at him to "cowboy up" and offer her the strength to shore up her own crumbling emotional reserves.

We were together and we waited for the end of a life we cherished, had nurtured as best we knew how, and what seemed to promise the end of so much more. We knew so little about our darling "beanie", not even whether we were losing a boy or a girl. It was hard, and it was just the beginning.......