Epilogue of Book 1 and/or Prologue of Book 2

Waking up unaware of where you are with a slow realisation that you don't know who you are has been a staple of books and films almost as long as the media have existed. When I first woke several hours ago I had neither problem as despite feeling seven sorts of shitty I knew I was Delia Venus Williams, lying in private hospital bed in an isolation tent in London's Charing Cross - I simply didn't know what I was! The nurse who came to my bed hadn't even the curtesy to offer the usual placating phrase 'Everything went well'. Instead she told me I'd have to wait for Mr Pitt to explain.

That left me nothing to do while waiting for my doctor but to wonder at my journey to this moment which has been to say the least complicated. Even as little as a week ago I'd been sitting with my sister Litara on a hotel balcony in the Dominican Republic toasting the First Day of 2001. Beside being bridesmaids to our Grandma Tina on New Year's Eve we'd then spent the next 5 days travelling the country sightseeing and meeting newly found relatives who confirmed our status as Euro-African-Amerindian-Polynesians although to keep things simple in my case I could say Welsh.

I'd felt our travels and meetings should have been a more enjoyable experience than they actually were for seeing all those mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles cousins and those in more complicated relationships left me feeling an isolated appendage rather than a real part of the family. My sister Litara either didn't need lovers and the prospect of children or hid it well but I wasn't built that way and openly needed more than money and status - I needed things I couldn't do alone.

As a start to each day of our holiday, to take my mind off the future I'd returned to my habit of morning runs and then, after a phone call to my doctor Charles Pitt in England, joined Litara on an aloe rich diet which she'd got enthusiastic about and Charles said wouldn't hurt and might help. Displacement therapy I think they call it when anything that distracts our attention is welcome. The long and the short of it was that when Litara and I had walked into the London hospital on Monday 8th January 2001, straight off the flight from the Dominican Republic I'd been as fit and physically prepared for surgery as at any time in my life but was an emotional basket case!

Why an earth had I continued with this operation when I could have had a standard low-risk hysterectomy and lived as either male or female? As soon as Bill died I would still have become a billionairess with as much power and attendant status as could be bought. Maybe it was a madness because although I'd never been diagnosed with any psychiatric disorder I'd still gone ahead and risked my life with a bunch of nutty, experimenting doctors and scientists for just the possibility of a baby.

It was the question Charles asked when I expressed my doubts that highlighted my problem. 'Are you frightened of dying, frightened of loosing your penis or are you frightened the operation won't work and you'll never have a child.' Without being desperate about it I knew I would continue to live as female regardless and I'd already risked my life for less during recent months so the answer was clear and repeating the words I'd used once before on the phone from Las Palmas I told him 'I'm frightened if the operation fails I will lose all hope but I must try so Charles, I've decided… I want a baby!'

"Good morning Venus, I'm sorry about the tent but it does show that the graft is in place and that the news is 'So far so good'. The scientists love your XX(y) cells which seem to hold out the possibility of future organ transplants without a regime of immune-suppressant drugs. For your case they have created from your chimeric trio of XX, XX(y) and XY cells on a collagen fibre base, a bridge between your XX cervix and the XY vagina the surgeon has created from your penis.

Mechanically everything went beautifully - I'm sorry to put it that way but top surgeons like yours do tend to impress me as behaving like a cross between sculptors and mechanics. What we now have to do is wait and see how your body adapts and accepts while avoiding infection. The surgeon kept as much length from the penis as possible to have something to work with in case of rejection or infection but that does mean that the bulbourethral/Bartholin's glands which we now hope will lubricate your vagina are deeper inside you than normal for an XX vagina but they are there which is a bonus and more than we knew before the operation.

The bad new is that unlike your last operation we can't have you quickly on your feet so I want a physiotherapist with you twice a day. That will be expensive and annoying but healing is my area of expertise and I strongly recommend it.

So began my days of torture through hours of boredom, physio, tests, more physio and minute inspection by my own scientist who couldn't have been more pleased if he been called Frankenstein so I called him Frank and if the result is a baby no doubt there will be some who will think of me as a monster.

Litara came in every day then Mum, Dad, Grandma, and Bill visited on the following Monday when they flew into Heathrow on the way home to Cardiff after their holiday. The day after that I came out of the tent for another trip to the theatre for the removal under local anaesthetic of bits and pieces of what they politely called scaffolding and two days after that the catheter went and I was finally allowed out of bed.

By this time I felt more than ready to leave and Charles agreed but Frank was the sticking point. It was two weeks to the day before Charles, Litara (on behalf of the insurance company) and I faced him with either signing that I had complied with all agreements made that had allowed him to spend research money on me or he would have to pay all of the future bills!

There would be no stopping at a London flat with Litara this time as Bill had just bought a motorhome and insisted on driving up to London with Grandma Tina and chauffeuring me back to Mum and Dad's in a reclining position like some Lady Muck. I lasted about 30 minutes in bed before frustration overcame me. Reassuring everyone that Charles had insisted that I wasn't some fragile flower I joined them up front where Grandma was playing MC with her choice of music.

I shouldn't have been surprised just because Grandma's 75. She is after all a newly wed and the originator of girl power back in the 1950s so driving down the motorway we went through the list of girl power anthems from Aretha Franklin to Shania Twain with Bill smiling like the cat that got the cream surrounded by us, his new family, singing at the top of our voices.

To be continued