Seeing my son Shariq, 16, in his black prom suit, I couldn’t resist asking for one more photo. ‘Oh, Mum,’ he said, embarrassed, as I aimed my phone. Although he towers over me, he’s still my baby. My feelings go beyond just being a proud mum – they are a reminder of our journey as a family to this moment, a journey that started in a poorly lit stairwell in Pakistan.
In 1992, when I was 22, my husband, Amjad, and I had an arranged marriage. From the start, I always wanted children – perhaps more than most because my mum died when I was 12, leaving an emptiness that could only be filled by having