Pregnant with my first son, I never felt like an expectant mother. To me it was a term that conjured up images of some fat-bellied, smock-wearing hausfrau, sitting in a rocking chair, knitting bootees while waiting to fulfil her feminine calling. I was not that woman. On the contrary, I was merely a human being who happened to be having a baby.
Other women were expectant mothers, obviously. Girls I’d been at school with. The women I saw at the antenatal clinic. My own mother when she’d been waiting to have my brother and me.
Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
