Pop star talks of IVF agony

This should have been one of the happiest weeks in Gary Numan's life.

Ten years ago he was up to his ears in debt, his career had stalled and a major relationship had fallen apart. Now, happily married and solvent, his latest song has just reached No 1 - but Numan, 44, and his wife Gemma, 34, are 5,000 miles away on a Mexican beach, hiding the heartbreak of six failed fertility treatments.

It's the sort of situation thousands of couples find themselves in every year, having spent a fortune on advanced fertility treatments only to be told they've not been any help at all. But Gary and Gemma, undaunted by the expense and stresses involved, are determined to try a seventh time for their longed-for child. It's almost become an obsession and two of them are as single-minded as the pop star proved throughout his rocky career. Gary and Gemma first met in 1992 when she, a longtime fan, wrote to tell him about the death of her mother and he took her out for the day as a treat. A year later they moved in together and in 1997 they married.

"I've always wanted children and when we first fell in love, we talked about the future and both agreed we wanted a family," Numan says. They immediately began trying for a baby, but after a year they sought medical help and were referred to an NHS hospital in Chelmsford. After a series of painful and difficult tests they were eventually diagnosed with "unexplained infertility" and advised to try IVF treatment. In November 1999 they began the treatment at Bourne Hall, the clinic near Cambridge where Louise Brown, the first test-tube baby, had been conceived. To their joy, in April the following year, Gemma became pregnant.

Gary recalls being excited but also worried when they went to the Portland Clinic together for their 12-week scan. As they looked at the ultrasound monitor, gazing in wonder at their baby for the first time, Gary felt, "it was the best thing ever" - but only for about five minutes". Then, ominously, they were asked to take a walk while a consultant was summoned for a second opinion.

"It became obvious something was wrong," he recalls sadly. The doctor then broke the news that their baby might suffer from Turner's Syndrome, a rare condition that can result in serious physical and mental handicaps, and that they should consider terminating the pregnancy.

Back home, the couple tried to come to terms with the bombshell as they scoured the internet for more information, agonising about their dilemma: whether to bring up a seriously handicapped child or lose the baby they had dreamed of having.

A week later the decision was made for them when Gemma had a miscarriage. She says: "It was terribly sad but I was glad I didn't have to make a decision about it."

Distraught by grief, they determined to try again as soon as possible. But five subsequent IVF treatments have ended in failure. Now, with Numan's career hitting its biggest peak for 20 years with his chart-topping Sugababes collaboration being followed by a Greatest Hits album in a fortnight, the couple are taking a well-earned break in the sun to prepare themselves for a fresh effort.

In vitro fertilisation, or IVF, means fertilisation outside the body. First used successfully in 1978, around 27,000 women undergo IVF treatments every year, at a cost of up to £3,000 a time. The average success rate for IVF is less than one in five, and the chance of success decreases with the woman's age. It involves the collection of eggs and sperm which are mixed outside the woman's body in a culture dish. Any eggs that fertilise are left to grow for up to two days and then up to three embryos are transferred into the woman's womb. If successful, one of embryos will implant in the lining of the womb and the woman will then be pregnant.

The Numans remain confident that their dream will still come true and plan to resume IVF treatment at the end of the summer, after recharging themselves physically and emotionally. "There is an awful lot of stress involved - especially for Gemma - which is why we really need a break," says Numan. But he is adamant that their marriage has not been under strain, despite the gruelling regime of hospital visits, sometimes on a daily basis, and endless medical procedures.

"It is really exhausting but you do it together," he says. "You are leaning on each other and helping each other. That's why I don't understand why so many people find it a strain. Surely that's what being a couple is all about - sharing things. And your two strengths together are stronger than being on your own. I never thought for a second it would be a strain on our relationship and it wasn't. I know it would be romantic to say it has brought us closer together, but that's not true either - because there is no way it could get any better.

"Although Gemma really wants children, and it is important to me too, she is a thousand times more important to me. Through all this, my only concern was not about whether it has worked but how it would affect Gemma." He says the first time they went through the process, only to lose the baby after 12 weeks, was the most difficult.

"That was the worst because we actually had a baby on the way. It was absolutely terrible and we were devastated. There were a lot of tears. And when the most recent attempt failed, in February, that was pretty grim, too, because we had two weeks when our hopes were raised, but then they were dashed again.

"It is the waiting that wears you out, the not knowing. You can't live your life normally because everything hinges on phone calls from the hospital and you wish the days away to that point. It has felt to us as if it has been the main thrust of our lives for the past few years."

The couple's attempt to start a family comes just as Numan's career is enjoying a major revival in fortunes. Having made £5 million in the first few years of his career, just 10 years ago he was on the brink of bankruptcy and ready to quit music altogether.

"My low point was in 1992. I was £600,000 in debt, my personal life was a disaster and I had just made the worst album of my career," he recalls. "I had run out of ideas and lost direction and I thought of packing it in. But this is all I know, all I ever wanted to do."

After suffering two decades of critical derision over his music, his space-age costumes, his Thatcherite politics, his ( successful) hair transplant - and his fleet of private planes - Numan slowly began to rebuild his career.

"I was driven by a determination to prove my critics wrong," he says. "I was determined to show them I was not an Eighties throwback past his best. And I never got druggy or drunk or any of the things that take away other people's chance of coming back." Today, his tunes have been rediscovered by a new generation of musicians and he attracts glowing testimonials from the likes of David Bowie, Beck, Marilyn Manson and The Prodigy. His songs have been covered by acts as diverse as The Foo Fighters and Robert Palmer, as well as appearing in movies and computer games. What's more, he's hardly ever out of the charts thanks to samples used by everyone from Armand van Helden to Basement Jaxx.

He attributes his success to a combination of hard work and thrifty housekeeping by himself and his father, a former Heathrow-baggage handler who is also his manager. "We are a shining example of a cottage industry at its best," he says.

"My dad and I haggled for everything we bought and worked every hour that came and did every job ourselves. It was constant work - we didn't go on a single holiday in the first 15 years - and we both learned as we went along.

"I am not proud of number one singles or selling albums because so much of that is down to luck. But I am proud of our survival. The fact that the Sugababes got to number one and I am still here, getting more credibility and respect as each week goes by, is down to our determination to keep going. I am really happy."

The only thing that would make him happier would be a baby. "It's hard to explain my feelings at the moment," he says. "It's a strange mixture of being hopeful and losing confidence. If we are not successful, I don't know how long we will keep trying: but I don't in any way feel incomplete without a child.

"If we end up not having children, I could not wish for a better wife. I would still feel that I had absolutely struck gold with Gemma. And it's hard to imagine life could be any better than this."