Janette Manrara

I want to explore.

And then Aliash and I, when we started dating, like the first thing he said is, do you want children?

And I said, I don't know.

And Aliash was like, I definitely want to be a dad.

And I was like, whoa, can we just, hi, can we have a conversation first?

Of course.

Can we finish our salsa?

We haven't even started our appetizers and he's like talking about being a dad.

And actually, it wasn't until I got into my late 30s and something very strange happened during COVID.

I was watching television and like this bizarre feeling came over me and I looked over at the side of the bed and it was empty and I just imagined our baby.

And I just had this insane feeling of like, how wonderful would it be to just be sat here watching telly with our little baby next to me?

And I went, oh?

Yeah.

What's happened?

What is this feeling?

This is strange.

But it wasn't straightforward.

You know, we tried for two years and I didn't fall pregnant.

And then we thought, OK, let's go down the IVF route because I was 39 at the time.

And then Lyra happened naturally.