In our latest reflection for Lent, our contributor writes about being a single woman in her forties, desperate to have a child

“The commodification of a child by an industrial process” was what the priest called it, bemoaning the number of his parishioners who had turned to IVF.

I sat opposite him, recording our conversation, in his parlour, and wondered if I should tell him I was about to join their ­number. But I was there to conduct an ­interview, not tell my story, so I listened to his lament and took another sip of tea.

I was 43, single and desperate for a baby. I’d wanted, and planned for, children all my life. I’d kept all my children’s books. I’d hung on to my favourite toys. I’d even become a practising Catholic (having grown up in a secular household) in my early twenties, because I aspired to give my children the happy family life I’d experienced when staying with Catholic friends and relatives and thought it better to be brought up with a religion rather than none.