When our son was born, my husband and I were in a fairly good place. We had been together for three years, were fairly OK financially, we had some relatives living close by who were willing to lend a hand with the baby. We had just weathered a spot of adversity and were in a fabulous place in our relationship, connected, loving, strong, intimate. We thought of ourselves as kind, intelligent, patient people who were well-equipped to provide a stable and loving home to a child. We felt as ready as we would ever be for a child, and we wanted very much this baby that I was carrying.

And then our son was born. And three days later when the adrenaline wore off when our son still appeared to be disinclined to sleep much at night and cried what felt like all the damn time, we cheered each other on and pulled together and repeated soothing mantras such as "This is our beautiful baby whom we love and we are going to be Okay and we are going to make it" but our son broke us anyway before three weeks were out with the ease of a Medieval Inquisitioner.

Dark times followed. The cumulative effect of sleep deprivation and stress did not make for pleasant living conditions. The nights were grim and rage inducing and seemed endless. More often than not I actively hated the experience of motherhood for the first three months.

I had survived bereavement, assault, two wars and high school but caring for my newborn was the hardest thing I had ever done and took me to new personal lows. It took everything I had not to just run away from that crying baby, not to shake it, not to hate it, not to abandon it. I had worked with children before, but being with a child for several hours and knowing that you'll get time off from them at the end of the day was NOTHING like the practically respiteless work of my early motherhood. Each day felt like I was being asked to run a gauntlet in which people repeatedly hit me with sticks, and once I'd finished one run up I'd get for another pass.

And in those awful sleepless nights  as I bounced up and down on a yoga ball attempting to tire out my wide-awake child I had plenty of time for reflection. And I spent alot of those reflections thinking about how hard parenting was and hoping that no one brings a child into the world unless they actively want to, because if I who had wanted this baby so much was having such a hard time how much harder would it be for someone who had had kids under duress or hard conditions? How much harder it must be for someone to postpone their life and give their energy to their child if they hadn't wanted that child? How awful for everyone involved - for the poor resented babies and the poor parents running those gauntlets.

Now six months on my son has settled much better than I expected. Clinginess and fussiness and howling are no longer the norm. He sleeps through the night and I have much more energy to give him. Now I find myself thinking about having another child in a couple of years time.

But I haven't forgotten the early days. I still remember the physical and emotional brutality of caring for that newborn, and how it took all of my strength and emotional resources. How it taxed my marriage in the way that nothing had before or since and how clear I was in those days that if I got pregnant again before I felt ready I would have without a doubt, without regret, have had an abortion and I support wholeheartedly every woman's right to make that same choice.