‘No. I’ve never met her before.’

From the look on her face, she wasn’t too keen on getting to know her, either. Interesting.

Ruth filled the awkward silence. ‘My husband is jealous that your partner found a way to get out of all this today.’

This was getting better. Gail was the one here alone. What was the story with the absent father? Gail was just what Jenny was looking for. Thank God.

No such luck.

‘I don’t think he needs to be here. I’m the one doing it.’ And she left the room.

There was no way on earth that Jenny was doing this birth business on her own and, from the look on Ruth’s face, she felt the same way.

Just then, Antenatal Sally popped her head around the door. ‘Okay to come back and get started again?’

Jenny’s heart sank. What else was there left to find out about childbirth? From what she had seen, there was no one and nothing there that was worth writing about. Gail was the one person with an interesting angle, but she clearly wasn’t a ‘sharer’. Pitching this ‘Undercover Mother’ blog to Eva might just have been career suicide. If Jenny wasn’t interested in the minutiae of motherhood herself, how would she write something that other women would want to read? Was it too late to back out and beg for her old job back?

Chapter Four

Pregnant women are supposed to GLOW and BLOOM: I’m not sure my body got that memo.

My skin is stretched as tightly as cling film, my nipples are as big as tea plates and the weight and size of my bump makes me walk like I’ve peed my pants. Ironically, I’m also getting undressed in front of more strangers than the staff at a brothel – and, like them, no longer care who looks at my lady parts.

At least my maternity leave starts this week: no make-up, no bra, no clothes at all if I don’t feel like it. That’ll teach my husband for getting me in this state…

From ‘The Undercover Mother’

Long blonde hair and endless legs: Lucy turned the head of every man they passed on their journey towards the bar. Strangely, they didn’t seem as interested in the human cannonball waddling behind her. Jenny tried not to mind.

The bar was very young and very bright. There weren’t many places Jenny didn’t know in the area, but this one had only opened two weeks ago and, as they weren’t serving Gaviscon cocktails, she hadn’t yet been in. Lucy, however, was already on cheek-kissing terms with most of the barmen. Once she had made it abundantly clear that she knew absolutely everyone in there, the two of them looked for somewhere to sit.

Instead of tables and chairs of normal height, there were high, red leather bar stools around tall tables you could only fit a couple of cocktail glasses on. Jenny glanced around to see if there were any comfortable sofas more suitable for a pregnant woman. There were none. And it wasn’t as if she could ask Lucy to help. Show no weakness.

Lucy had hopped up onto her stool effortlessly and seemed unaware of Jenny’s dilemma.

‘I’m so sorry that I’ve taken your job like this.’ As opening statements go, this wasn’t the most tactful, accompanied as it was with the kind of smile beloved by toothpaste adverts.

Jenny cracked a huge fake smile. ‘Please don’t apologise. I was happy to give it to you.’

They both knew where they stood.

Then Lucy noticed that Jenny was still standing. ‘Don’t you want a seat? I thought pregnant women had to sit down all the time. Don’t your ankles swell up or something?’ She glanced down at Jenny’s feet, as if expecting to see that she had grown hooves.

There was nothing else for it: Jenny was going to have get up on that stool.

Circus elephants sat on chairs with more grace. A sideways approach – left cheek first – didn’t get her posterior high enough. Right side first? Same result. There was no choice but to back into it, bending forwards and then flopping her backside on at the last minute.