I agree that comparing ourselves to other mums is sometimes at the root of many feelings of inadequacy, but not setting up an empire during the first year of your child's life should certainly not be one of those things.

While all this emotional and physical cartography was happening externally, internally I was beset with a belly full of love flutters. There could be no mistaking the movements as gathering wind. The Interloper was growing at an almighty rate and I bludgeoned by tiredness.

I've been a mother five months and I'm strangely confident. Maybe it's not so strange. Perhaps I'm hard wired for it. In my extensive experience thus far I have learned how important confidence really is for a new momma.

It occurred to me that once ensconced in the state of motherhood women are prone to suffer the Stockholm syndrome, devotedly held captive 24/7 by the needs of our charges.

I used to be suspicious of Feminists, until I realised I was one. You see, it's almost impossible to be a woman and not be feminist - after all, who would willingly give up the element of choice in their lives, to be told what they should do and how they should do it?

There are certain inalienable truths about parenting, I know because I've shouted them at my own parents on numerous occasions from teen to twenty som...

When you stop to think about it, it's truly amazing that we have done so well without super powers. Most of us are not stay at home parents yet we're expected to juggle kids, jobs, relationships, household chores and community obligations with a smile and without a complaint. And, for the most part, on most days, we do ok.

Children are treated like precious and breakable artefacts and motherhood has become a competitive and rarified sport.

The Glam Rocker was keen to attend this scan - previous doubts having abated somewhat... still he needed to see this baby bud for real. In boy speak it was the money shot, i.e. what was the going rate for child support?

I found myself writing apologetically that I had taken 'career breaks' around the births of my two daughters. I did not write in big, bold letters 'Mother' the same way I wrote 'PR Manager' or 'Copywriter'. And the more I didn't write 'Mother' in big, bold letters to explain the years 1996-1998 and 2005-2009, the more furious I felt.

Working mums striving to "have it all" now can add another perk to their list of benefits — health. New research from University of Akron finds ...

When you announce you're pregnant many people seem to have a similar reaction, "oh congrats, how wonderful, get all the sleep you can now because you'll be wrecked from sleepless nights!" But that's not all, then comes the horror birth stories.

Over lunch we discussed the concept of having a baby together. Our instincts seem to be in synch and the situation though scary, (we only met six months ago) for want of verb 'smelled' good.

Before you have a baby everyone has a story to share or a warning to give. You take it all in, some of it you disregard convinced it will be different for you. Other stuff, no one tells you, and perhaps it's best that way.

Marie-Slaughter's article makes a powerful argument that women with children are not failures for failing to be what she calls 'superhuman' mothers and career women, and she also provides a sense of relief for us stay-at-home mums, as she confirms that spending as much quality time as we can with our children has to come first.

I sat facing the doctor as she tapped away at the computer. It was 5.30pm on a Thursday evening in North West London. She was hoping this last appointment would be brief, an easily diagnosed problem.

Almost 21 months ago, I gave birth to my greatest inspiration, my son Corey. After a year's maternity leave I was certain that the full-time job was not for me. So, I decided to embark on a freelance, writing career with the great expectation (albeit unrealistic!) that this was the key to achieving that perfect, work/life balance.

I'm really looking forward to half term week with my 6 year-old Biscuit-thief, and I'm determined not to watch Cbeebies even once, however much I miss it.

A wise woman with a French accent once told me, "Until you can drive a car, you cannot drive your life." "But that's ridiculous," I scoffed through a...

Can women's working lives be made any easier? Should they be? Perhaps these are the wrong questions. Getting a job doesn't seem to be the problem; the issue is the emotional juggling act women have to perform. We men remain largely passive observers to this dilemma, wanting to help but often not knowing how.

As a society, we probably do not understand the extent to which perinatal mental health problems can impact adversely on families and in particular children. There is a paradox of society's expectation of the happy mother, perfect parents with a much loved baby. This is in contrast compared to the hidden realities of becoming and being parents.