Despite the back-to-back position, it had been a relatively smooth procedure, the surgeon told me afterwards, as my little boy and I enjoyed our first cuddles. The bond between us was already so strong. I was so glad Oscar was there too, to bottle the moment and keep telling me it was real. After all I had been through with the abortion all those years ago, and dreaming of this day for so many years, I desperately wanted to feel complete. If this was a film, we would have just reached the conclusion: our heroine could have done this on her own, but it was twice as nice doing it with her love by her side. Yet it wasn’t a film, and it was possible to feel simultaneously happy and sad.

It was early evening now and Oscar had popped out to get me some snacks. Although tired, I couldn’t sleep. The baby was lying next to me in a plastic cot, wearing his first White Company babygrow – white with little yellow ducks embroidered on it – and he was looking at me and gurgling. He was little more than six hours old but already seemed so alert. Old beyond his hours, somehow. I wondered what was going on in his mind, and what he could make out of my face.

I ached to pick him up, but the burning sensation in my abdomen reminded me this was far from possible right now. Pressing my buzzer for the duty nurse, and then the agonizing wait for someone to come every time I wanted to hold him, or shift a pillow behind my back, bring more pain relief, or help me take a sip of water from the bottle that always seemed to be just beyond my reach, was becoming almost as painful as the wound itself.

He was woozy with sleep, now, and it made my eyes feel heavy at last. He already suited his name – Albert, after a great-great-grandfather I never knew. I had always loved the name, ever since I was a child and gave the moniker to my favourite teddy bear. I still have the teddy; it was currently propped up at the end of the cot at home, waiting to meet its name twin. He was to be Albie for short. No middle name, because in my family boys often took their middle names from their fathers. He had a downy covering of light brown hair on his perfectly round head. I wondered who he looked like; I couldn’t see myself in him yet. I thought about whether he bore any resemblance to his father. But he only really looked like a baby. Or perhaps Winston Churchill.

I sent a message and a photo of Albie to The Baby Group:

Hot off the press – my baby boy is here. Meet Albie, 9lbs of gorgeousness. Mum and baby doing well.

As I pressed send, a big fat tear rolled down my cheek.

A nurse came to take my blood pressure and change my catheter. Having a baby was undignified however you chose to give birth. I asked her how long it might be before I could go to the bathroom by myself.