Laura Bottiglieri

There is a moment I can still feel in my body, even now. Recovery room, chaos all around, my daughter battered and bruised and struggling to breathe, and she wriggled down my chest and latched. The feeling is so visceral I get goosebumps and choke up when I say it out loud. We had just come through the 11th hour, literally. Everything was fractured and urgent and terrifying, and then there was that moment, skin to skin, her mouth finding what she needed, and something in both of us settled...

I'm working with a family at the moment who are so frightened of what might happen next that they can't let go of what feels familiar, even though what's familiar is the very thing holding them back. I recognise it because I've felt it myself, in smaller ways. The fear of the unknown has a particular kind of grip. It doesn't feel like fear when you're inside it. It feels like sense. It feels like control. You keep doing the thing you've always done, not because it's working, but because it's...

Some mornings, once everyone else is sorted, I manage to pull on my trainers and get out for a run. Not early, not glamorous, just whenever the gap appears, if it appears at all. This is my quiet mile, the bit of the day I try to keep for myself (and the dog), and honestly it's become one of the few things that keeps me sane. I'll be straight with you though, this took me years. For a long time after becoming a mother, like so many women, I put myself so far down the list I fell off it...