Dear Kathryn
You are twenty nine years old and pregnant. For the fourth time. So why the tears? You always wanted five children and the three you have already are healthy and happy. You have a lovely home, enough money and are married to your children's father. You love him and still find him attractive and interesting.
If only he still felt the same way about you. It is almost two years now since he fell in love with someone else. She lives nearby and you know her. At parties and other social occasions you see them together, dancing, talking, even disappearing for half an hour sometimes. Of course you have confronted him about it but he laughs and says you are making it up and you love him enough to be temporarily reassured.
When you finally cracked and ran away with all three children, a tricycle and a suitcase full of shoe polish, he was tender, kind and passionate in a way that he hadn't been since the first year of your being together. That rush of passion - was your despair so appealing? It resulted in this pregnancy and he doesn't want another baby.
He came with you yesterday to see a consultant obstetrician and he explained gently that you had recently had a breakdown and were not ready to cope with a pregnancy and a fourth child. They spoke quietly, one doctor to another, and arranged a date for a termination.
The other woman is still on the scene. His passion and tenderness waned as soon as you came back home. If you go ahead with this pregnancy you know you will lose him. Your three beautiful children will grow up without their father and it will be because of the choice you make.
One day, when you are sixty nine years old, you will look up at the stunning majesty of Mont Blanc in the Alpine sunshine as it lights up the glacier. You will wait, stamping your feet on the snow as your grandchildren ski expertly down the piste and laugh as they hurtle towards you, turning at the last possible moment.
Their dark brown eyes are his and you can look into them without pain. Their mother lives here with them, a nurse, happily married to her French husband. She is in love with life. Your fourth baby. The one who thought that all Daddies only came on Wednesdays.
You will make the right choice.
