We also suffered the dreaded vinegar douches, employed at key moments in the insemination process with scant regard to the hygiene or harmony of the act. A bottle of white vinegar became a familiar sight everywhere but the kitchen. We even took it to Bali once and faced the devilishly ticklish problem of persuading Australian customs officers that it should not be deposited in the airport bins designated for rotting fruit and unconsciously purloined airline food.

Throughout all this, Lorelle, single-minded in her pursuit, was keeping the sort of statistics census officers dream about. For one full year, she took her daily body temperature so as to determine exact averages and peaks at any given moment. Armed with this precious information she was then able to call upon me at specific moments to perform my manly role in the matter, which came to entail about as much excitement and anticipation as removing nostril hair.

Mood, I should point out, did not enter into the process. Neither did my work schedule. When I heard that stern command, 'Now!', all business was suspended. I had to abruptly excuse myself from meetings, then return flushed and disheveled a few minutes later and attempt to pick up the delicate negotiations where I had left off. I think I was suspected of being a junkie, or at the very least a closet lush.

Once the foetus took hold, stuck to the sides so to speak, we got to speculate for nine months. An ultrasound seemed too much like cheating so we tried more scientific measures; like a wedding ring tied to a piece of string and dangled over the pregnant belly. An anti-clockwise spin denoted a boy, a clockwise spin a girl. Or was it the other way around? I don't suppose it matters now. We did draw the line at one of the more bizarre old wives' tales - peeing (Lorelle, not me) into Drano drain cleaner.

Apparently it turns either brown or green depending on the sex.

Self-enforced ignorance of the results of our bizarre bed rites always made the nine months creep by at a glacial pace but it did ensure no subconscious pre-delivery antipathy entered the picture. It's not really an issue once they pop out; when you lay eyes on a new nipper its sex is of no consequence (although there was one exasperated 'not another bloody boy!' gasped out in the birthing room between contractions that a certain somebody is still trying to live down). At that point, when it is evident you have a boy instead of a girl, you just dust off the instruction books, tomatoes, chillies, tarot cards, talismans, charts, graphs and criminally expensive text books and tighten up the mattress strings.

Sportsmen, I'm told, use the same basic approach.

By the time I was a father of five sons, I was trying hard not to let it get to me, though there were lapses of my stoic control. For years, when I had been buying gifts for the family in the exotic markets of far-flung lands, I had regretfully walked pastthe endless racks of exquisite girls' clothing, jewellery and knick-knacks, ending up by the small and dreary pile of boys' shorts, T-shirts and plastic Rambo assault rifles.

I longed to snatch up an arm-load of brocaded gowns and hurl a wad of currency at the startled stall-holder. Eventually, in a moment of calculated rebellion, I bought a tiny pink (by this stage it had to be pink, for reasons of effective contrast) dress in Manila and boldly bore it home. It was ceremonially filed away for hopeful future use so well that I don't think it has ever been found.

I am not much given to homilies but patience is its own reward. We did change the plumbing. It happened when we'd got tired of all the medieval sorcery and quack theories and just forgot about the whole thing. We ignored the well-meaning friends who kept inquiring if the sixth pregnancy was any different to the others (it wasn't) and we paid scant attention to those who urged us to note if Lorelle's belly protruded sideways instead of outwards (which, for once, it did). We just maintained a quiet, independent positivity and went about our lives.

Which probably added to the potency of that unforgettable moment, while the doctor was doing his stuff and I was trying nobly to assist without causing any permanent harm to mother, child or facilities, when Lorelle and I locked eyes and fixed each other with an expression of synchronised astonishment that can scarce be imagined, let alone repeated. Right down to the line, neither of us had been willing to let ourselves fix upon the notion that we could actually pull it off. I'm just glad I was there; otherwise I might have been tempted to accuse the hospital of tagging the wrong child.