I push and push, and Dr Kaufman pulls and suddenly, in a bloody gush, the baby slithers out.

For a beat, the room is still. The baby lies on the bed between my legs, a thick, twisted purple cord joining us together. Dr Kaufman cuts the cord.

‘It’s a boy,’ someone says.

Then silence.

Dr Kaufman is slapping the baby on his back. He’s a red-purple colour, like raw steak.

Time ticks.

He turns the baby over, wipes his nose and mouth.

‘Come on, come on,’ he says to him.

We all stare.

The silence is more than I can bear.

He coughs. A tiny movement. Then a bigger one. At last, a small cry, then a full-on howl. The tension in the room breaks and suddenly everyone is smiling, laughing, crying. They wrap him in a towel and Dr Kaufman hands him to me to hold.

‘Thank you,’ I whisper, ‘thank you, thank you.’

He delivers the placenta and cleans me up, stitching the cuts to my flesh. I barely notice, though, because for the first time, I’m staring into the face of my baby boy.

And suddenly I know love like I have never known it before.

1 August 1939

His head is covered in downy hair, so fair it is almost transparent. He smells of warm milk and biscuits. He has deep blue eyes and already he focuses them so meaningfully into mine. We are one, he and I. It’s as though he can read my mind and I his. He wants to know me. His eyes trace every contour and line of my face with such avid attention that his little mouth forms an ‘o’ shape as he pants with excitement and his arms and legs thrash about.

I examine every centimetre of his body, over and over. I never imagined I was capable of producing anything so perfect. His hand wraps itself firmly around my finger and he grips with surprising strength, but he doesn’t yet know how to let go. When I lift him, his legs scrunch up and his back curls over as though he doesn’t realise he has all the space in the world to stretch out. And when I feed him, his fingers reach and grab at my skin, just as a tiny kitten would knead its mother as it suckles.

He is a thing of extraordinary wonder.

And more precious to me than anything in the universe.

I can hardly bear to sleep, because when I do, I’m not conscious of his presence. Time moves too fast and each night that falls, each day that dawns, brings the dreaded parting closer. I kiss his forehead and gently wipe away the wet of my tears which land on the soft down of his head.