Recently, a reporter from the papers rang me up to ask if she could do a story about what motherhood is like, having three kids so close in age. She then asked me some routine questions so she could find the interest angle in my story. I don’t know if what I shared would end up as a feature in the papers, but talking to her sure brought back a flood of memories.

Memories – though somewhat a little hazy now – of how I discovered I was pregnant after Ben was barely nine months, and having to deal with a very horrible, terrible, no good first trimester of wretching, wretching and more wretching, always feeling so sorry that I couldn’t last longer breastfeeding Ben (and to think I even wanted to try tandem feeding!) …

Memories of how tough being pregnant in the last trimester was, with a toddling toddler in tow, and being every bit the hands-on mom that I am, doing everything for him (and refusing to let the domestic helper do what a mother should do) …

Memories of how Becks was such a difficult baby refusing to latch, Ben graduating from infantcare to toddler class at daycare, and me breaking down like a wreck seeing how hard he cried at our separation every morning after his sister was born …

And memories of how the road to having an infant and a toddler was made even tougher when my husband broke his leg and was out of commission for the following half of the year…

And then discovering that I was pregnant again when Becks was transiting to solids well and learning to toddle like a pro…

To realise that the moment Nat was born it was almost an automatic given that Becks would enter her Terrible Twos, albeit half a year earlier …

And then I suddenly had in my hands – gosh, not enough hands! – two toddlers and one infant …

And that when they were in childcare and infantcare, and falling sick quite often with germs having a heyday in the house, I had used up all my leave, my savings, and my energy …

Those years were insane years.

And then I was asked the question: if I could do it all over again, would I at least try to space them further apart? Or maybe… stop at two…?

And a deluge of sentimentality hit me so hard it took me quite a while to recover. While I sounded composed and did all my polite laughs, I was choking on the inside.

Those years were hard. Those years were crazy. What was I thinking?

But these faces.

These children today, at 6, 5 and 3, and the bond that they share being each other’s best friends, is the reason I say makes everything worthwhile.

I would do three kids, 18 months apart, in a heartbeat. My world has never known otherwise, and yet my world has been made complete with the three children I have today.

It has been one hell of a mad, mad ride, but it’s totally worth it.