After eighteen years of devout, okay, unwilling bachelorhood, Robert Forde finally met Iona, the woman of his dreams. With a great job and a perfect wife what could possibly go wrong? Fate, of course, was more than happy to answer that stupid question.

Life was going swimmingly until the time arrived to start planning a family but little did Robert or Iona realise just what lay ahead for them both.

Against a backdrop of the credit crunch, union strikes and erupting volcanoes they find themselves entering the incredible world of in-vitro fertilisation. Along the way they have to struggle against hideous bureaucracy, terrible incompetence and all those nasty little surprises that life can throw up as well as those quirky incidents you simply cannot make up!

"The Journey of Love and Hope" is the story of a book. It is a very particular book of which but a single copy exists and which is aimed at a very exclusive audience. It is the account that Rob Forde wrote for his child-to-be explaining not only the motivations that drove him and Iona on but the struggles they had to endure in their quest to have a child.

It is a message through time, a record of events to a very special person, a book which may never be read written for a child who may never come into existence.

"The Journey of Love and Hope" is a fascinating bitter-sweet insight into IVF, written from the point of view of just your regular kind of bloke.