In the space of less than a week I have gone from being somewhat depressed to feeling like life is back on track.

Really, I should be feeling scared, dreading the forthcoming sickness (I can tell myself I may not get it this time, but who am I kidding?), worried about getting post-partum depression after the baby is born, worried about getting ante-natal depression before the baby is born, worried about who is going to look after all these children when only one of them is at nursery a couple of mornings a week and generally just worrying.

Instead I have a sense of life moving forward and also the feeling that I can enjoy every minute of this pregnancy and this baby. Part of the depression I have experienced over the last two years has centred partly around the fact that life didn’t seem to be moving forward but also the fact that I knew I wanted another baby but I would have all the pregnancy, new baby and toddler horror to cope with. Instead of enjoying Second Son, William’s, babyhood I spent it thinking ‘I’ve got to do all this again’. Now that I am pregnant again I feel like I am on that road to what will probably be our last baby (although never say never) and as such I can enjoy it simply because I know I won’t be doing it again. Perverse, eh?

I am also pretty happy that we have done everything possible to maximise our chances of conceiving a girl (am I setting myself up for a fall, or what?). Did you know there are methods that can be employed to maximise the chances of conceiving a girl? They involve briefs instead of boxer shorts, timing to have sex when you are NOT ovulating, or at least when you haven’t quite ovulated (which sounds more like a form of birth-control to me), employing the less-rude positions in the sex manuals and so on (most of these are associated with the Shettles method for those of you that are interested). Who knew? Well I certainly do now. Don’t ever ask me about these methods because I will go on and on about what you can do and you will so regret asking me.

A good friend of ours employed these methods after two boys and after a long gap ended up with their much-wanted girl and we have heard and read about similar stories. Lucky? Perhaps. We figured it was worth a try. You just know though that I am going to end up with a rugby team of boys. And you know what, actually I’d be secretly thrilled because I think boys are fantastic. It’s just that, statistically, boys tend not to look after their elderly parents and, by God, I’m not having all these children just to be thrust into a care home and never visited by my offspring the minute I become inconvenient to them.

When I got pregnant the second time round I thought I would be much more blase about it but I was just as thrilled and excited as I was in my first pregnancy and every day I look at my sons and I just think they are miracles. Really, truly and utterly miracles. I hate the process of looking after small children, but the small children themselves are the best thing I have ever done in my life, without question. Now I am pregnant for the third time I am just as thrilled and excited and, so long as everything goes well (and I am very aware that miscarriage is still a high probability in these early days), by the end of the year we will have a third baby to gaze at in wonder, to love more than life itself, to fear for and to watch growing and changing every day into an incredible person in the same way that my first two children have.

Oh yes, happy doesn’t even come close to how I am feeling.

[SEE THE SPROGGING CATEGORY FOR MORE PREGNANCY POSTS]