Once upon a time there were three sisters who had been cruelly deserted by their mother when they were children. The eldest, Cat, was in her late 30s and determined never to have children. "I'm so glad Rory had a vasectomy after his divorce," she thought.

Jessica was the middle one. She was blissfully married to Paolo. "I want to have children so much," she sighed. "Wouldn't it be sad if I wasn't able to because of the abortion I had when I was 16?"

Megan was the youngest and feistiest. She had just split up from a long-term relationship. She now just wanted to concentrate on qualifying as a GP. "Who are you?" she said to the surfer boy at the party. "I'm Kirk," he replied, "and I'm going back to Indonesia tomorrow."

"Oh gosh," said Megan, two weeks later, "I'm pregnant."

"Well, you'll have to have an abortion," Cat insisted. "Babies are horrible."

"You're right, but having a living baby inside me has brought up a maelstrom of conflicting feelings."

Jessica looked sad. "We're going to have to try IVF," she sobbed. Paolo breathed hard. He would do it because he loved Jessica so much, but inside he wondered whether her desire for a baby might not tear them apart. He took her in his arms and they made love. And do you know what? That night she conceived.

"Isn't it exciting that we're both pregnant at the same time?" tweeted Jessica.

Megan smiled, but inside she knew that Jessica was at an early stage and it could go wrong.

Jessica felt the trickle of blood. "It's not fair," she sobbed. "Now I've miscarried we'll never have a baby. I want to move house and devote my life to material possessions." Paolo indulged her because he loved her so much.

Kirk couldn't get Megan out of his head and flew back to London. "I want to be involved," he begged.

Cat saw Megan's baby, Poppy, in the delivery room and felt a stirring in her ovaries. She rushed home to Rory. "You've got to have your vasectomy reversed." Rory felt confused. He didn't want to lose Cat, but he wasn't sure he wanted another child.

Megan and Kirk went to Barbados so he could get work as a diver. One day she spotted him with another woman. "What do you expect when you won't sleep with me?" he said. "We're over now," she said. "I'm going back to London with Poppy to be a GP."

Paolo took Jessica on holiday to China. "Let's adopt a baby," she smiled, and they came home with Little Wei.

"Oh, Rory," cried Cat. "It's a miracle. I'm pregnant."

"Poppy needs more of my time," moaned Megan. "I'm going to work privately."

"I'm pregnant again," yelled Jessica. "Can we dump Little Wei, then?" Paolo asked.

In another part of London, the three sisters' mother was all alone, crippled with multiple sclerosis.

The digested read ... digested

Barely scratches the surface of the female psyche but still proves a major irritation.