After what seemed like weeks, we were home. Ever so carefully, I carried my boy down the front steps and into the house. It was a special moment. Finally, all the drama and pain seemed to be at an end. We were together at last, all of us, and it was right. I cried. Yet again.

But as wonderful as it was to be home, the first night was hell. Much production was made of bath time, the fiendish occult horror that is night feeds still waiting in the wings.

“Do you really think we should bath him now?” asked my mother, timidly. I was puzzled by the question.

Yes yes, of course! I’ve got all these lovely bath-time gadgets and equipment and smellies… of course we bath him. Why ever not? That’s what good mothers do, isn’t it? Bath their babies? Right? Am I missing something? I must have missed something. Dammit. Is there some rule I’m not aware of?

Obviously I didn’t say any of this to her. The mere fact that she’d asked the question in that nervous I-don’t-think-it’s-a-good-idea-but-don’t-dare-suggest-it tone indicated that she had something on her mind. Hmm… try as I might, I couldn’t figure it out, so I was forced to reveal my ignorance. I hate that.

“Um, you don’t think we should bath him, Ma? Why not?” I asked, equally timidly.

And there it was. The defining moment. The beginning of our astounding, record-breaking feats of Walking on Eggshells. We did it then, we do it now. We’re really good at it. Call it tact or diplomacy, call it beating about the bush or choosing our words carefully to minimise damage, we’re the champions. We have, on occasion, slipped up and accidentally let rip with what we really think and feel, but not often. I recall a particularly nasty fight during which I lost it and threw a soggy, disposable nappy across the room, narrowly missing my dear mother’s head. Good times…

“Um … you know, it’s quite late already. Don’t you think it’s a bit cold to bath him now?” Ma cringed as she said it. She must have had premonitions of projectile nappies.

Oh dear. I had missed something. Six hours into this motherhood lark and I’m already about to give my child hypothermia. Nice.

I bristled. (Yeah, that’s such a good word. Describes the sensation perfectly: the little hairs on my arms rising, leg and jaw muscles tensing as irritation seethed within.) I bristled mostly because she was right and I was stupid – but also because of those three words she uses every time she tries to sound casual and nonchalant. Don’t you think…? That little phrase so pisses me off, for no rational reason at all. I seems to say, “Why the hell didn’t you think of this?”

Ah – but then, oh joy and hallelujah – I was saved. I remembered the chapter on bath time in one of my many second-hand baby books. I think it was the one whose pages are populated entirely by women with long, straight hair parted down the middle, or else permed beyond recognition, wearing brown polyester sundresses and false eyelashes. The words “Your husband” are used a lot in that one. Lots of soft-focus shots of mother holding baby, and zero pictures of breastfeeding. Which is crazy, because that’s what you really need, right? Actual photographs of actual women breastfeeding actual babies, so that you can see exactly what you’re supposed to do. When you come right down to it, what does a properly latched baby look like, dammit? We need to know these things. Apparently, in 1975, vague descriptions were good enough. Probably explains why an entire generation of children was bottle fed. You don’t need to use the word “nipple” to explain bottle feeding, much less flash any real ones. Oh, the horror!

According to the Sacred Illustrated Text of Smug Seventies Motherhood, it is apparently occasionally permissible not to bath your baby. On such occasions, a technical procedure known as topping and tailing would suffice. Topping and tailing? Who comes up with these names? And no, it has nothing to do with carrots or oral sex at all.

I was nervous at first, dithering a bit, constantly wanting to check the book to make sure I was doing it right, but I was immensely proud that I remembered how to do it: the bowl of cooled, boiled water for the eyes, the surgical spirits for the umbilical cord, all of it.

As I washed his tiny face (a fresh piece of cotton-wool for each eye), his pudgy little starfish hands, I found myself relaxing. It happened gradually, as I blew kisses on his tummy, snuggled my face into his sweet Elizabeth Anne’s scented neck. I could see his big, serious eyes trying to focus on me and I was fascinated by this little boy, this tiny person who needed me so much, and whom I needed even more. I dressed him in his cuddly sleep suit (using them for real, at last!), then wrapped him in more blankets than were strictly necessary, and realised that it was done. I’d done it, all by myself, without mother or nurse or book, and he was still alive.

Oh, wonderful feeling! What an amazing sense of achievement, of competence, and totally unfamiliar, too. The tugging, stretching sensation of incredible, scary love growing stronger. It’s like having a bubble inside your chest, a bubble that expands a little every day, catching you off guard sometimes, making you feel it might burst – like you might burst from happiness and love and contentment. As if you could ever have too much of those things. There is no better state of being in the world than this. I sat holding him in my arms for hours, talking, cuddling and just watching his face until he fell asleep. Yes, yes, I know you’re not supposed to do this, but fuck it – wouldn’t you?