It’s time to tell my daughter I’m pregnant again

This week: How should I break the news to my teenage daughter that she is getting a new sister?

Iam carrying a small fridge down five flights of spiral, stone stairs. It is leaking something I hope is only water, but has the distinct whiff of tequila/cheap cider about it. Every few paces I stop to catch my breath, relieve the weight from what is most definitely now, at 16 weeks, a slightly protruding bump, and let my nausea pass.

Already, I have lugged 12 boxes of assorted student paraphernalia down said spiral stairs, across two quadrangles, through a Porter’s Lodge, past gabbling groups of pale students in various stages of hangover, and half way down the street, before attempting to cram it all into the car. Most of it has fallen out onto the pavement several times, while far posher parents than I look on from their shining 4x4s in mild disgust, as I heave and lug my teenager’s mess balanced on my pregnant abdomen.

I have come to help my daughter move out of her college at the end of her first year studying at Oxford. And, when we’ve finished this, to tell her the news that, almost exactly on her 20th birthday, she is going to have a somewhat unusual present – a baby sister.

Telling a teenager that they are shortly to have a new sibling is something I’ve never done before.

My older three children are all relatively close in age (19, 17 and 14), so the last time I informed any of them that I was pregnant, they were too busy making Play-doh sausages to pay much attention, or care.

Even when a new sibling arrived, they didn’t have much of a clue what was going on, and almost certainly expected me to take this disappointing, smelly new toy back to the shop. Explaining it to my grown-up daughter, however, is a different ballgame. And takes a lot more balls. Balls, and coffee. And cake, which always helps news go down better.

So, when the car has been stuffed from floor to roof, I take my oldest baby to The Missing Bean, our favourite café, to tell her about the little bean I have growing inside me.

I have waited this long to tell any of my children, partly to let them focus fully on their end-of-year exams without any “My Mum Is Replacing Me With a New Version” issues, and also because I wanted to know the baby’s sex first – and miniature genitals are rather tricky to identify clearly until about this point.

Also, I wanted to tell their dad, and my ex-husband, about the baby first. It was one of the strangest conversations of my life, but he took it kindly and sensitively, as I knew he would.

It was also unexpectedly sad, because it reminded us both of the many happy years of parenting we had shared – despite how things had ended up.

Now, it was the turn of my eldest daughter. We sat down in the window and ordered coffee. And cake. And had a motherdaughter chat about boyfriends, friendship dilemmas, and her summer plans. But not about babies.

Second coffee ordered, I decide to come out with it. Meet my parenting fate head-on – or rather bump-on – and prepare for a slice of Battenberg to hit the floor… or my face.

“So, I have some news. You’re going to have a baby sister.”

It was succinct, if nothing else. A 19-year-old hand with chipped nail varnish and illegible Biro scrawls is slapped across a mouth. Tears make channels down over-foundationed cheeks.

Pause. Then: “Oh Mum! That is amazing! I’m so, so happy!”

I didn’t care that it was almost certainly just her hangover emotions talking. It was exactly what I had hoped to hear.

Next week: I’m starting to show and I’m not sure how my 40-plus body is going to cope

‘On the second cup of coffee, I decide to come out with it – and prepare for cake to hit my face’