don’t like hospitals.

Let’s be honest: nobody actually does. Ostensibly they’re about making people better, but they’re not. They’re about reminding us that at some stage we all get sick, and we all hurt, and we all get lonely, and sometimes there’s nothing anybody can do about any of it.

The only thing on my mind as we walk through the big metal doors into the waiting room is that the last time I was in this exact hospital, I had a mum. And when I left three days later, I didn’t.

I suddenly feel horribly sick – right through to the middle – and it hits me just how much my feelings towards this baby are about the fact that it might take Annabel away from me. Because that’s what babies do, isn’t it? Babies change everything.

As we walk across the big green floors, I try to focus on the rhythm of my breathing and the beating of my heart and the tap of my trainers. Then I feel Nat gently grab my hand. “It’s going to be OK, Harriet. Look.”

I glance up and there’s Dad doing some kind of Riverdance in the hospital corridors. Every time a nurse or doctor walks past, he grabs them and spins them in a little triumphant circle.

This must happen more often than you’d think, because they just wait patiently until he lets them go and then continue with a slight smile down the corridor.

Nat kisses my cheek. “I’ll go and get a cup of tea. See you in a few minutes?”

“Offspring Number One!” Dad shouts across the hospital as my non-kissing soulmate disappears through the doors. He immediately wrestles me into a bear hug and tries to whirl me in another circle. “You’re back! That’s your name henceforth, by the way. Or maybe ‘Good’ and I shall call your sibling ‘Bad’ and we’ll have an entire set of Manners.”

He lets go and I steady myself. “Is …” I swallow. “Does that mean Annabel’s OK?”

Dad looks at my face and then wraps me up even tighter. “Of course she’s OK, sweetheart. She was always going to be OK.”

I can feel my chin starting to do the crumpled-up paper-ball wobble. Dad kisses the top of my head and pulls away. I finally notice his T-shirt. In big letters in red marker pen it says MY DAUGHTER’S A SUPERMODEL, and underneath, in little letters, it says: THE OTHER’S JUST SUPER.

“It’s a girl? I have a baby sister?”

“You certainly do,” Dad says with a grin that almost cracks his face in half. He ruffles my hair, and for the first time in my entire life I don’t scowl and try to smooth it back again. “I think it’s time you met her.”