Infertility

"Everything came late.

I lost my voice; I got it back.

I thought I'd never get married; I got married.

Then I couldn't have children; I had my kid.

I think everything in my whole life was a miracle." Better late than never?

"I don't think the age thing is a big deal.

You don't want to be looking under the hood all the time to check the mileage.

People aren't cars.

All this stuff with 'by this time, by that time'.

We are so inundated by what we're supposed to think, what we're supposed to like, how we're supposed to look, when we're supposed to look that way, how we're supposed to dress, when we're supposed to dress that way, that we have no sense of who we are as individuals any more.

And I believe I'm not a sheep.

I don't want to be a sheep." Lauper's musical career is back on track now, but the independence she has always fought for has been curtailed once more, this time by parenthood.

Not only does it require Job-like patience, but there are the other parents to deal with.

"As a kid I was an oddball.

I didn't fit in.

I'm still antisocial.

I mean, I like people but don't like to fit in.

"The hardest thing for me is the hockey-mum stuff.

I have to hang out with people I have nothing in common with.

They're nice enough, but my life is so f-ing different." And so somewhere in rural Connecticut perhaps a milder version of her own childhood alienation is being played out, with Declyn, 8, at the centre.

"My son is a little odd...

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