He was so confident with Benji, easing him into a routine and reassuring Angie whenever she fretted that she was getting it all wrong. He was her rock in those early days and even when he went back to work at the end of his paternity leave, he texted her constantly and rushed home at the end of the day to be with her. She realised that one of the reasons why she loved being a mother so much was because Jack loved being a father and had made it easy for her.

Her plan had been to take nine months’ maternity leave and then return to work but she never got round to going back on the pill, and just a few months after Benji was born she was pushing the pram around the park when she realised that her periods still hadn’t returned even though she was no longer breastfeeding. She took a swift detour to the supermarket and bought a pregnancy test, telling herself that it was a false alarm and that she had nothing to worry about.

This time the two blue lines brought an avalanche of emotions. Benji was still only a small baby; how on earth would they cope with another newborn so soon? And there’d be no point going back to her job until after baby number two would there? Would her work even want her back after all that time? She knew that she was protected by maternity law but she also knew that what was written on paper wasn’t always reflected in reality. Was this the final death knell on her career? She sat on the sofa and cried, scared, overwhelmed and exhausted. And that’s where Jack found her when he returned home after receiving her SOS call.

In typical Jack style, he overlooked the negatives and extolled the positives. ‘This is great, Angie; we know we want more children so what’s the point in waiting? They’ll be so close in age; they’ll be best friends. Don’t worry about your work; they love you; they’ll be fine.’

Angie tried to reassure herself that Jack was right. She called her work and, as Jack had predicted, they were great about it. In the end she didn’t see much point in going back for a few months so instead she decided to switch off her work brain, enjoy her second pregnancy and immerse herself in the pleasure of full-time motherhood for a bit longer. As her due date drew nearer, she was apprehensive about how she’d cope with having two under two but Jack’s confidence and excitement was infectious, overriding her fears and anxieties.

Everything was different from the start with Indie. She had a difficult labour which ended up in an emergency caesarean. After such a straightforward experience with Benji, it had knocked Angie for six because she hadn’t been expecting it, assuming her second labour would mirror her first. And Indie’s dramatic entrance into the world set the scene for her childhood.