I urgently want to be not pregnant now but even having that thought makes me feel a pinch of remorse because I’m supposed to be enjoying every single moment of this.

My breasts, with a tracing of blue veins like deep-water rivers pressed against the white skin,

She was luminous with a bliss that wiped out the exhaustion and physical demands of a difficult birth and a baby who struggled to feed.

The midwife says I should include a lot of whole grains and oily fish in my diet. I nod a silent lie to her over my blue notes, because I know these things will make me want to throw up from a very dark and deep place inside me.

is an experience that’s endless, holding me stiller and stiller as my belly tightens, a huge, hot, heavy presence that accompanies me everywhere and that’s really not that much fun. I had been worried the baby was too still, hiccupping less, rummaging around inside me with less insistence.

I wanted the end of pregnancy to be soothing, but instead my emotions are like snooker balls, cracking off one another with the slightest provocation

He knew, of course he knew, as soon as he saw the pregnancy test in my bag. But he hugs me, telling me it will be great, and really sweet to have another baby in the family. But it’s difficult, too, as they both know that a new baby doesn’t spell straightforward pleasure and happiness. More babies are a joy, a sweet, jolly, milky blessing,

But I don’t say any of that because a mother can’t say these things.

There’s no reason to have another baby, apart from a ravenous kind of hunger that’s like joy and melancholy and nostalgia and daring all mixed together.