Sometime around my daughter turning one, I put all of her newborn clothes in a big sack and gave them away to a friend who was about to have a baby . “Are you absolutely sure you don’t want these back?” she asked, as she loaded them into the boot of her car. “One million per cent sure,” I remember saying, looking at her bump and thinking how grateful I was not to be in her shoes. “I am never, ever having another baby.” As she drove away, I felt a hint of sadness that I’d said goodbye to that chapter of my life, but that sadness was very much secondary to a sense of relief that I’d never have to navigate the newborn baby stage again.

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I drove up to see said friend and, after a nice lunch and lots of gossip, loaded that same sack of clothes (plus lots o

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