It was only in the past year that it had really started to feel late. Just before my fortieth I started waking up with an anxiety that shook me from within, not long now, it said, not long now and it’ll be too late. Those around me have two or three children, some won’t be having any more, they sit up all night breastfeeding, they’re exhausted. Others struggle to have another, but it all works itself out eventually, after numerous test-tube attempts and much frustration, and the new baby wails endlessly and they talk about how much more tiring it is having two than it was having just the one, without realising how obvious it sounds. They do drop-offs and pick-ups every day, and the morning routine goes on and on, they never have any problems finding things to do in the holidays because there are grandparents and aunts and uncles to visit, and the need for time alone as a family too, meaning a trip up into the mountains or a camping holiday or a visit to a cabin somewhere or other, just my friends and their children, it’s one of their favourite things, they tell me, just having a bit of time to ourselves. They move 46into bigger apartments or terraced houses with gardens, and sure, they said they’d never move out of the city, but just think, the kids can run outside and play, they buy all the things they previously mocked, end up with a garage and two cars and a Weber barbecue that’s so big that they feel slightly ashamed at the size of it, but it’s nice to have a big barbecue when there are lots of them or when they’ve got family visiting; life is porridge and burping and stains and wee and poo and snot and lack of sleep, so little sleep, and screaming and endless rounds of chickenpox and tummy bugs and colds for everyone, then a fresh bout of tummy bugs all over again. And every morning they eat breakfast together, three or four or five of them, every evening they fall asleep next to someone, cuddled up side by side, every night they are woken by a child who wants to sleep in their bed, a child to cuddle, a child of their own.