We have a daughter. Tomorrow she turns one! This seems like a momentous thing. With that in mind, here’s a bunch of sketchbook-diary pages from our journey to parenthood...
First we got pregnant. 
Then we got hungry.
Then we started to feel sick. (This one was mainly Char.)
Eating helped, a bit.
Then we went to a patronising Home Birth workshop.
Then we saw the foetus on TV.
We were all over the place. (This one was mainly me.)
We went to see the film Mother! It was upsetting: 0/10.
We painted the other bedroom a gender-neutral shade of white.
We spent a lot of time swiping through the baby names app.
Then the bump got big. Really big, like a beach ball. But firm, like a basketball.
Then labour started. The paddling pool was up. The towels were down. We were ready, kind of.
Labour went on for many hours, and then many days.
At the end of day five we went in to hospital. First we were in a nice room, then we were in a pool. Our midwives cared for us so well that we both ended up falling in love with them.
Many more hours later, on 7 December 2017, she came out. She was a girl. She weighed 9 pounds, 15 ounces. We called her Clover.
Eventually they let us take her home. She was sweet, kind of.
We read all the manuals.
She was hungry. Feeding her was the hardest thing.
(This DVD helped. So did a special pillow.)
She was a big baby.
We consumed a lot of screen-based content.
We consumed a lot of tub-based Ben & Jerry's.
We saw our NCT friends. They were all finding it easier than we were, kind of.
It was a lot to get used to.
Mostly Clover would sit in her chair.
Or sleep in her other chair.
Or lie on a mat.
Every night we would watch TV and Char would pump milk.
She was always pumping that milk.
Then, at night, I would give Clover a big milk hit from a bottle. We would sit in the dark for an hour and I would listen to a whole podcast. I had a purpose. I liked it.
It was always best when we had Things To Do. Things like swimming lessons.
Being pregnant changed a lot for us. Even Char's celebrated 20/20 vision was ruined (that's a thing that happens). Eventually she admitted defeat and got glasses.
We went to Mallorca for pretty much the whole summer. This is us in Palma airport, on the way out.
Lots of people came out to visit us. We hung out with friends and family on beaches and by barbecues. We were lucky.
But it was still difficult. Mostly we did the same things as at home, but more naked.
Clover had all of her first meals outside.
She liked it.
We took her to the most beautiful and hard-to-reach coves, clambering down crumbling cliffs with her in a sling.
It wasn't always worth it.
And now we're back. We're back and we've brought with us a new person. A tiny, real one-year-old person, with a sense of humour and interests (Ariana Grande, the books of Janet & Allan Ahlberg, putting things in her mouth) and it's getting better and better.
So, that’s it. Happy birthday, Clover.
