'Now I've found inner peace'

DIANE Blood likes to see herself as just another busy mum, juggling work commitments and looking after her two young sons. Yet this seemingly ordinary woman has had an extraordinary few years, which began when her husband Stephen died suddenly from meningitis in 1995.

Before Stephen's death, they had been trying for a family. While he was in a coma, sperm was extracted which would allow her to bear his children. But her world was further torn apart when she was later banned from using the frozen sperm.

It is eight years since Diane launched a legal battle for the right to use Stephen's sperm and have the child they had planned before his death.

The case prompted a huge ethical debate in the medical profession, parliament and the media, after the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) refused permission for Diane to use the stored sperm because her husband had not given his written consent. With huge public support, Diane appealed and three judges ruled that, although she could not be treated in the UK, she had the right to export the sperm to Belgium.

She ended up going to Brussels for the IVF treatment and now has two beautiful sons, Liam, five and two-year-old Joel. But she says that, although she still thinks of Stephen, her life is different now.

''There's a hole in your life that will always be there but you get used to living in that hole. Now I've got children and everything that comes with them. As time goes on, there are other memories that have happened since the death that begin to fill your life. That's not to say that I'm ever going to forget him - and I haven't.

'Some days I think of him a lot and other days not much at all. It depends what's happening.''

Sometimes, it's parenting issues that trigger Diane's thoughts of Stephen.

''I remember we'd gone to the cemetery before Joel was born and Liam was busy plucking the petals off the flowers I'd put on Stephen's grave," she says.

''My immediate reaction was to be quite angry with him and I was about to shout at him, when I heard this voice in my head from Stephen saying, 'Leave my son alone, let him be'. I could see his face and hear his voice. He would have laughed at it. That turned a moment of anger into happiness.''

A further campaign ended last December when she won the right to have Stephen legally recognised as the father of her children.

Only now, she says, has she finally found inner contentment and has drawn a line under all her battles with bureaucracy with the publication of Flesh and Blood, which charts her life from when Stephen was taken ill to the present day. It's written partly for her children and also to set the record straight.

In many ways the 38-year-old has moved on from the agonising trauma of losing her husband in a few cruel days and the fight that ensued to enable her to bear his children.

She still lives in the home they shared in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, although she intends to move next year into a larger house nearby which she is currently renovating.

The decision has nothing to do with the house reminding her of her late husband, she says.

''There were more memories attached to my clothes, because he bought many of them for me. When I was rummaging through my wardrobe they'd bring a lump to my throat."

But she says she doesn't get overly sentimental about the various traits her sons may have inherited from her father.

''Stephen had incredibly long eyelashes," she says. "It was the most striking thing about him physically and Liam also has incredibly long eyelashes, but beyond that I can't see similarities.''

Since the court battles and her children's births, life has also settled down for Diane, she has even found an inner peace.

''The trauma has gone out of it," she says. "I'm very happy and contented now. When we were going through the court case there were some real lows and some real jubilation, whereas I think that real happiness comes from that quiet contentment of knowing that everything's right and sorted.

''That is the root of real happiness.''

But she has been changed by Stephen's death and by what followed.

''I have been through a lot on my own, whereas in my relationship with Stephen, he was the strong one.

''I had relied on him as an emotional prop but when he died, I had to do it myself. I think I'm more persistent and understanding now.''

But in some ways she has been unable to move on. She and Stephen were teenagers when they met and were together for nine years before marrying in 1991. She hasn't had a relationship since his death and admits she doesn't go out much.

''I have a social life with other people with young families. I'm not of an age where people want to go out to the pub on a Friday night. I'm of an age when they'd sooner go to the park with the kids on a Saturday.''

Diane, an advertising copywriter, still has her own company but her work regime has been changed to fit around looking after her children.

''I work for myself, my hours are flexible and I've a lot of support from two families. I think that's something that really only happens with widows. When somebody is divorced, the paternal support isn't always a part of the wife's life. I have support from two families and there's no animosity.''

Stephen was the love of her life but she doesn't dwell on the fact that she no longer has a partner.

''I feel a warmth and glow of knowing that I was loved - and that hasn't gone. I've been out with male friends that happen to be single, but there's been no romantic inclinations at all. There's been no spark.

''I don't think that falling in love is necessarily something you have control over. I don't have a crystal ball. If I fell in love at some point in the future and it was a good relationship and they loved the kids, I'm sure I'd feel differently to how I feel now.

''But you'll not find me in the small ads. If I meet somebody in the park and we get talking and happen to fall in love, that's a different story.''

* Flesh and Blood, by Diane Blood, is published by Mainstream, priced £16.99.