‘Oh my god, it’s so good to see an adult!’ Cec whispers in a hiss, balancing his tiny little head on her forearm. I lean down to kiss her on the cheek.

‘Ohhh, Cec, he’s precious,’ I whisper back. ‘I like his little hat.’

‘Come through to the lounge and you can hold him when he wakes up.’

We both just sit in silence staring at Oscar sleeping for a bit. Watching his little chest go up and down. I am mesmerized; I sit watching him breathe his tiny little breaths. He then opens his small crusty eyes really slowly. Drifting in and out of sleep, showing us the whites of his eyeballs and closing his eyelids again. He eventually properly wakes up and looks around the room suspiciously.

‘Aw, he’s taking everything in,’ Cec says proudly. ‘God. Olive, I feel a mess.’

I look around and see there are nappy bags, flasks, muslins, baby wipes everywhere. Her house is normally minimal and tidy. She is sitting in the middle of the mess. Of course it would be a state – I am just shocked to see Cec’s house like this for the first time. It’s like a baby shop exploded everywhere.

‘Do you want me to do anything?’ I ask. ‘Clear away a few bits?’

‘Thank you. If you could chuck all that shit on the floor into that big basket, that would be amazing. I can’t really bend over very well at the moment.’

‘Of course!’

Cec rocks back and forth in her chair, shushing Oscar.

After I’ve finished tidying up a bit, Cec asks me if I want to hold him. He looks tiny. He looks like a small alien with massive eyes – to me he doesn’t even resemble a human yet. My stomach starts to tighten with nerves. I’ve had so many dreams where I lose or drop babies. This was an opportunity to not fuck up.

Cec very slowly hands me Oscar. His body is like a small, warm hot-water bottle. He curves like a contented baby kitten in my arms and I gently rock him and do all the stuff I’ve seen other people do countless times. His legs are like little drumsticks, his cheeks are like tiny hamster pouches, with his little tongue poking out involuntarily, and even his dribble is sort of cute. I wipe his mouth with a muslin cloth that has cartoon giraffes on it and touch his flaky little head. Cecily is smiling. He suits you. He likes you. You’re a natural. Ha, look! He’s gravitating towards your boob! All the comments that I normally attract when holding someone else’s newborn. Oscar is so small and so helpless, drooping in my arms like a little sack of flour, and yet I feel an emptiness from deep within. Holding a new baby is like a new test every time. Will I now, finally, maybe, feel something? I’d think. Whenever women shouted, ‘Oww, what a cute baby! My ovaries! They just twitched!’ I would think there was something incredibly wrong with me because my ovaries have never twitched. There was no desire. Not even a slight, mild ache. Holding Oscar now, in this moment, my ovaries make no movement at all. Maybe they’re washing their hair or out for the day.