If I’d happened to spot a solitary magpie on my jog around the common, I’d saluted it and muttered under my breath: ‘Hello Mr Magpie, how’s your wife and children?’ while urgently scanning the area for his mate and feeling deflated when I couldn’t find them. Each time I’d neared the end of my cycle, finally two weeks post-ovulation, I had obsessed over whether I was going to get my period or not. Each trip to the toilet had become a heightened experience as I hoped there wouldn’t be blood on the loo roll; each day I had been overly aware of my body, wondering if a slight sensation in my abdomen was a premenstrual ache or a tiny, fertilized egg implanting itself in my womb. And then when my period had come, there had been a brief dalliance with denial, wondering whether the first drops of blood were spotting related to implantation. I had googled pregnancy symptoms so exhaustively I knew every possible scenario. But this hope had always been followed by the crushing disappointment and acceptance that I was not pregnant again that month.

At 35, I wondered if I’d left it too late. A year of trying wasn’t long in the scheme of things, but when you were suddenly desperate for something, it felt like an eternity.

But that morning, my period slightly late, I felt different.

I woke up feeling really positive. After receiving the text from Jason, I decided to walk up to Clapham Common to keep myself occupied. Just a short stroll from our flat, I approached the common on the south side, taking my usual short cut through the back streets to reach the open space for a light morning run. I saw two magpies and then three, fluttering playfully between two big oak trees, almost bare of leaves, as crisp and clear as anything. It was a bright day, the air felt fresh and smelled of moist bark, and the dew hadn’t yet dried on the grass.

I stopped to watch the magpies as they hovered around the low braces of the tree, coming together for a moment and then scattering, their movements so rhythmic and graceful, they had to be a little family.

‘One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl…’ There were definitely three. ‘A girl,’ I whispered under my breath. ‘It’s happening – I’m having a girl.’ I felt it in my gut and there was nothing I could do to stop a huge smile spreading across my face.

After a shorter than usual circuit of the common, buoyed by Mr Magpie, his wife and child, I called Jason. He didn’t answer, so I sent him a message:

Hey baby – call me asap!

I tried to get on with some work. But although I read the email from my editor at least five times, as she detailed the list of amends to my latest illustrations, nothing was sinking in.

I tried ringing him again – no response. Even when the little white ticks on WhatsApp had turned blue, so I knew he had read my message, he still didn’t reply.