Having a baby is like getting a tattoo on your face. You really need to be certain it's what you want before you commit.

Here's the thing: the unit of reverence in Europe is the family, which is why a child born today of unmarried parents in Sweden has a better chance of growing up in a house with both of his parents than a child born to a married couple in America. Here we revere the couple, there they revere the family.

When you've lost a baby, everyone around you expects you to be fine once the new baby is born, as though that somehow takes away the pain of losing the first child. I needed to express how wrong that was.

“Making the decision to have a child - It's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

I've been through it all, baby, I'm mother courage.

Now the thing about having a baby - and I can't be the first person to have noticed this - is that thereafter you have it.