[West Ender]

I go a lot further back than most of you but the relevance is just the same.

I married young (age 19) and we wanted children early. I had my first, planned, child when I was 21 and my second 18 months later. We bought, begged and borrowed what we needed for number 1 when I was pregnant and most of it was used again for number 2. For a few years we were pretty hard up, with only 1 salary, but the plan was that I would return to work when they were close to grammar school age. Not having new cars or holidays abroad didn't matter as the children were more important.

I returned, on a casual basis, to my career when my children were aged 10 and 8 then 2 years later I was in the process of being fully reinstated when I became pregnant again, totally unplanned this time and a big shock. I put my job on hold again for another 9 years, had to start afresh with all the baby equipment, but my husband was earning a lot more, comparatively, than when the others were little so it wasn't a struggle - we had a nice house (thanks to his very good DIY) and a company car but still no holidays abroad for a while.

I'm glad I had my children when I did. The only thing I would have changed, if these things were possible, is that if fate said we were to have a 3rd child I'd have liked the gap to be shorter.