Remembering Sunday

I am a mother. Or rather, I am your mother. I know this is obvious to you; that you will only ever know me as 'mum' and that the idea of me having a life before you were born is unfathomable. For a great many years - and possibly for the whole of your life - you'll find it hard to consider me anything other than that slightly annoying woman who tells you off, washes your clothes and cooks your dinner.

Yes, Mum, I have done my homework. No, Mum, I didn't mean to kick that football into next door's garden. No, Mum, how was I supposed to know that if I fed the dog chicken it would puke it back up all over your new carpet?

But I digress. I am your mother: you were born on Remembrance Sunday, 11 November 2007, at 8.50pm at Trafford General Hospital. You weighed a 'good' (according to the midwives) 6lb 7oz - 'good' because you were three weeks early. And I laughed when you were born. I was so delighted with it, with your appearance, that I actually laughed. It was incredible, to meet this tiny, perfect baby.

It felt like I'd known you all my life. You looked like you. You looked like my son, Milo: of course that's your snub nose, of course that's your shock of dark hair. Of course those are your murky blue eyes.

You just made sense.

It wasn't then, though, that I fell in love with you. Simon - your Dad - reckons he fell in love at your 12 week scan but I know the moment I fell in love. It was 24 hours later, in the dead of night. I looked down as I fed you, at your eyes tightly closed and your fist curled around my little finger and felt this big rush of love. Wham. My heart was yours.

You'll break it, of course, a thousand times over, but that's OK. I'll still love you.

And part of the rush of love is, I know, hormonal, the ebb and flow of the all-purpose hormone, Oxytocin. The one that brings on labour, that produces milk, that makes me love you like a mother. Clever stuff. Potent, too.

So welcome to the world, Milo James. I hope you like it.