It was never meant to turn out this way, this had never been part of the grand plan. The truth was that a young Sandra Pullman had wanted the traditional family life that most little girls dream of. That had been up until one day in the hospital after a car crash.
She was 17 when it happened, she was out with her slightly older boyfriend who had just passed his drivers test when they collided with a lorry.
The driver of the lorry had got away unscathed unfortunately the same couldn't be said for Sandra's boyfriend, who was left brain damaged by the accident and consequently died. Sandra had been trapped in the car and impaled on a metal pole through her lower tummy. It had been the fire service which had cut her free from the wreckage leaving her now able to go to the hospital.
At 17 being told you can't have kids is not something you want to hear but for Sandra that's what happened. The surgery to remove the metal pole had not gone well and after uncontrollable bleeding they removed her womb as the damage to it was huge.
In the second she was told everything went into slow motion, it was like watching herself in a soap, only this was real. That second had single handidly crushed all of her dreams, it had made her feel like she'd failed as a woman.
Now at 54 she sat happily in the park with her 3 favourite boys watching Gerry Junior play in the final of his football tournament. She couldn't help but think of all the things she'd missed out on as she heard a small baby cry not for away.
Time after time she'd convinced herself that sleepless nights and dirty nappies weren't for her but on a regular basis she was reminded what a load of rubbish that was.
From that day, back when she was 17, she'd done anything, swapped anything for all that she really wanted, to feel something inside her, to have someone else at the centre of her universe. From first words and first steps to exam stress and broken hearts, that was all she'd ever wanted but at such a young age all that had been so cruelly snatched away. From that young age Sandra had been taught life wasn't fair and even now, she wasn't sure she liked it.