When I was pregnant with Art, I asked a friend here what advice she had for me, and her advice was ‘hire a night nurse’. Don’t get me wrong, I think night nurses sound amazing, but this made me cross. I wanted advice about how to hold my baby, feed my baby, get my baby to sleep. Not ‘get staff’. It’s not the advice I think people should give to expectant mothers. It doesn’t fill anyone with confidence, it doesn’t make them think they can do it. I tell any friends who are having babies, if they ask, to see how it goes, and then get all the help they feel they need when they need it. I give the same advice for the birth. See how it goes and get the epidural if you need it. I find all of this planning for worst-case scenarios really depressing. There is so much fear instilled into people about having kids. Birth will tear you apart and you’ll never sleep again. It’s true, both of those things might happen, and it could be really terrible and often is. But also, it might not be. Birth might be the best thing you ever did, you might even be able to jump on a trampoline afterwards (I can’t, but you might). And your baby might be a sleepy one, and you’ll wonder what all the fuss was about. Hope for the best and do what you need to do when and if you need it. That’s my advice, not that anyone asked.