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Email: diane@dianeblood.co.uk

Diane Blood first hit the headlines in 1996 when she went to court to fight for the right to use her late husband's sperm to try for the child they had planned together before his sudden death from meningitis. Diane's case caused an ethical storm and was debated in the courts, in Parliament and in the media. With huge public support, yet against almost impossible odds, she won on appeal and went on to have two miraculous little boys, Liam and Joel. After a particularly precarious pregnancy and after spending the first days of his life in the Intensive Care ward of the baby unit, Liam was finally allowed home on Christmas Eve 1998. By then, it was almost four years after his father's death. Baby Joel was born three and a half years later.

The legal battles were not over, however, as the law still prevented Diane from naming the boys' father on their birth certificates. After many hurdles and stumbling blocks, she triumphed again and made constitutional history when the Human Fertilisation and Embryology (Deceased Fathers) Act finally came into force on 1 December 2003 and she was allowed to re-register her children's births.

This is the personal story behind the headlines. In her own words, Diane tells of the tears, the heartache and the joy behind this landmark journey.

Flesh and Blood asks many important questions and helps provide some of the answers. It shows how controversial policies are made that affect all our lives. Beyond that, it is a simple story of life, death and procreation: an emotional roller-coaster that was nine years of one woman's life.

Flesh and Blood would make riveting fiction - the fact that it is a true story makes it all the more compelling.