Yesterday’s mascara, but who really cares?

ALEX TURNHAM, 34, is a full-time mum and lives in Devon with her husband Stuart, 34, a company director, and their children Lara, 13, and James, two. She says: Ordinarily, i love to wear fashionable clothes and you wouldn’t catch me stepping out of the front door without foundation and mascara.

But when we left hospital the same day James (left) was born in February 2016 i couldn’t have cared less what i looked like. i still had yesterday’s mascara smudged under my eyes.

i probably looked a real state, but the only thing that mattered to me was that our little family was together.

That may sound trite, but a month earlier, when i was eight months pregnant, my husband had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, a form of cancer, and was due to start his second round of chemo the day that James was born.

Medics kindly delayed his treatment by 24 hours so that he could be with me for the birth, and the following day we were all back in the same hospital, just a few wards down, for his chemo.

He’s in remission now and i’ll treasure the pictures taken after James’s birth for ever.