Forget Magazine. Remember, Remember, Remember.

I gave birth to a pair of children's mittens on February 30th. As soon as I recovered, Johnny Doe (the father of the mittens) and I had a post-birth fumble. My uterus, bruised and battered, surprised me. I was expecting again.

During this pregnancy, I nursed the mittens - held them to my breasts, where they nestled woollen and pale pink. They rested, and I smiled on them.

The gestation was one month. On March 30th, Johnny Doe took me screaming to the hospital, and after an eight-hour labour I bore a pair of children's booties. They were black with a picture of a puppy on each one. Tears filled my eyes and slid, like butter, down my cheeks. Sweaty, snotty, my love was an ocean. The booties and the mittens were drowning. Johnny Doe took us all home. And we made love with the mittens and the booties asleep in the next room.

I was pregnant again.

On April 30th, I gave birth to a diaper. It continued.

On May 30th, Johnny Doe and I parented a pair of children's socks, striped blue and purple.

On June 30th, the vest was born, with 'Grandma Loves Me' scrawled across the front in looped red letters.

The clothes all shared the same nursery, which Johnny Doe had painted with rainbows and sunshine. But something was missing, and much as I gazed at my brood I could not work out what it was. Inside me the ocean was populated with ships, each vessel full of the future. And Johnny Doe was good to me. But we were not complete.

Mittens, booties, a diaper, socks and a vest.

Suddenly I knew what it was. 'Johnny Doe we have to try again.'

Thus, exhausted by the care of so many young, we procreated.

On October 30th, I felt my waters break. 'It's happening!' I shrieked. We drove to the hospital in minutes. The nurses recognised me, shook their heads to each other, smiled at me.

After a 17-hour labour the midwife presented me with a purple baby-sleeper.

'See, Johnny Doe, see how beautiful it is. We're a family now.'

He was grinning like a clown.

Back at the nursery I put the mittens and the booties and the socks and the vest and the diaper all together in the cot. I lay the baby-sleeper amongst them.

Then, holding Johnny Doe's hand like I would never see him again if I let go, the ocean poured out of my eyes.

Alice Kuipers is a welcome addition.