Rosie loved living in this house, with all her family. But once Will got older, perhaps had a baby sister or brother, they’d start looking for their own place. Once they were qualified, after uni, and when they both had jobs. Perhaps another house along this street. West London was so beautiful, and the Thames nearby. Maybe they could teach Will to row – there was a club that she’d seen out on the river. They’d have to learn themselves, though, since she’d never actually been in a boat. And she didn’t know how to swim. She’d learn, they both would. That’s what was so great – they’d learn everything with Will and Will’s baby sister or brother. There was so much she wanted them all to learn together, and today was the start of it. Today she was going to learn to be a parent.

She felt Kaz’s body move beside her.

‘Are you imagining holding Will again?’ she said.

‘How did you know?’

‘Your shoulder wobbles when you smile.’

Rosie leaned up on an elbow, looked down at him with her hair falling around his face.

‘You are sooo sexy,’ he said with a grin, wrapping his arms around her waist and slipping his hands under her vest top.

She was glad they’d chosen natural conception for Will, and fairly sure it’d be the same for all their other children. It was special for them, for their generation – in the early days, almost all the pouches began with IVF. But now that the transfer process had been perfected, loads of people opted for natural conception. The hard bit was waiting two weeks for FullLife to monitor the completed transfer. They used the time for screening too, so they could confirm the baby was healthy and everything.

‘Are you ready?’ Rosie said, kissing the tip of his nose.

‘I’m ready,’ Kaz smiled. ‘I’ve been ready since the day I met you.’

‘You mean when I accidentally hit that rounder’s ball into your face in PE?’

‘OK, the day after that.’

‘You mean when you came to school with a bruised eye?’ she said, eyebrows raised.

‘And you looked like you were about to cry.’

‘I was not about to cry.’

‘You reached up to touch it, but didn’t,’ he said. ‘I think it was because you were scared of hurting me again. So your hand just kind of hovered there, by my face, like time had stopped.’

Rosie paused for a minute, listened to his breathing, felt the warmth coming from his body. ‘That’s when you knew?’

‘That’s when I knew.’

‘Shall we have a baby today, Kaz?’

He pulled her closer, kissed the side of her ear, pressed his face against her head.

‘Yes please,’ he whispered, his voice muffled by her hair.

‘Right then!’