‘OK, and did you do it?’ she asks, stirring the wax and testing it on her hand. She seems more satisfied with the temperature now.

‘No, I had to have a C-section in the end,’ I say, flashing back to the trauma. Seeing myself, naked, surrounded by strangers. Humiliation crippling me.

I’d booked a full body wax for two weeks and one day before my due date. After a treatment I have around two and a half weeks of being hair-free before it starts to grow back. So if Bonnie was on time, I’d be good. If she was late, even by two weeks, I would be hairy, but it wouldn’t be its maximum thickness. It was the best I could do.

Bonnie came two weeks and two days early. I was fully hirsute. Thick, black, bear-like hair all over my body. Between my breasts, around my nipples, all over my abdomen, my back. My pubic hair thick down to my knees, heavy fur toward my ankles. When I went into labour I cried. I knew countless people were about to see my body and I panicked. My cervix did too, clamming up so tight Bonnie had no chance of getting out. I tried for hours, but she wouldn’t come. The hospital lights were bright, I begged for them to go down. They insisted they needed to see. Liam did his best to comfort me, but I screamed at him and made him feel as redundant as I did ugly. I heard a nurse say, ‘This is the most primal birth I have ever seen.’ Meaning it was like watching an actual ape give birth. I felt repulsive. So self-aware. Everything you shouldn’t have to feel in that moment. I wanted to be alone. To disappear into a dark corner and get my baby out by myself. I swear if I had been in the wild, it would have been OK. But there were people everywhere and no matter how much I screamed at them to leave me they wouldn’t. After fifteen hours of active labour, the doctor insisted I had a C-section. I was wheeled down the corridor. More bright lights. They had to shave my belly to get her out.

‘Well, at least you got her out safe,’ Maron says, snapping me out of my memory. ‘Well done you, birth is beautiful no matter how it happens,’ she continues, her young, ignorant mind speaking on her behalf.