It’s three in the morning and if I wake him up now without getting myself together, he is going to go straight into panic mode, so I leave the puddle on the floor and strip off the bottom half of my pyjamas and take them into the laundry room. While there, I get the mop to clean up the mess. I’m lucky that both of my boys sleep like the dead. It means I can do what I need to without worrying that I might wake them. Hopefully Jack will sleep until morning, none the wiser that I have gone into labour, and by the time he is up the baby might be here. A woman can hope.

Another contraction hits another fifteen minutes later and I mentally note down the time as well as how long it lasts, still I don’t panic. Maybe I panic just a little bit.

Since the last time I gave birth, I forgot how painful contractions actually are. It feels like every one of my nerve endings are screaming out as my muscles tighten.

Realising I’m stood in my underwear with no trousers (or pants, as Liam would say) wearing one of Liam’s T-shirts, a sight like Winnie the Pooh with my large belly bump, I decide to throw some clothes on and check the hospital bag before I wake Liam. Knowing that he won’t mind the inevitable bodily fluids that come with birth, I leave Liam’s T-shirt on and throw on a pair of his grey sweats.

There is no point in trying to wrestle on leggings, plus I don’t know when the next contraction will hit. In the walk-in dressing room I take one final breath in the silence of a house without a baby.

With the hospital bag in my hand, I take in Liam’s sleeping form, the top sheet is pulled up over his chest with his arms thrown over his head. He looks so calm. The opposite of me as another contraction hits only twelve minutes after the last.

“Liam, wake up.” I sit beside him on his side of the bed, running a hand through his hair to rouse him.

“Sunshine, it’s the middle of the night, you okay?” His voice is sleepy but full of concern when he sees the time on his bedside clock.

“Yeah I’m good but, erm, we need to go to the hospital,” I say quietly. I don’t know why I didn’t run through this conversation in my head when I was cleaning.

“What! What’s wrong?” He pops up like a jack-in-the-box sat straight in the bed, his eyes running all over my body looking for signs of distress.