To my son, in Room 112

A letter begun in Room 112, somewhere in Europe, in the early days of December. About travel insurance, oxygen levels, and the particular fierceness of love when it is briefly, terrifyingly, tested.

Dear Squeakicles,

The things worth writing down are usually the ones you're not sure you're ready to write. Some months leave marks. This one left several.

A few months ago I believe I highlighted the importance of getting gap cover, should you ever decide to bring another human into this world. I also should have told you to get pet insurance (or don't choose spaniels as your furry companions). And now I'm going to tell you something that's even more important: don't forget to buy travel insurance when you go on adventures abroad.

I started this letter in Room 112 while you were lying asleep on my chest. Despite the Italian room service (three meals a day), adjustable bed, delivery on demand (milk delivered with just the touch of a button), and tea served in a breakfast bowl, Room 112 is a place I would willingly erase from my memory for the foreseeable future. The story of how we came to share this room involves trains and planes and crossing continents. But for the days that we shared that bed, with a view of a winter blue sky that we couldn't quite touch, all that really occupied my mind was a torturous machine measuring your oxygen saturation level, and the dreaded number of 87. Every time it dropped below 87 for more than two minutes, I had to alert the nurses. Then we would wait. I'd hope it would climb back up, and when it didn't, it was back to the oxygen machine.

You have been adored by doctors of various nationalities by now, and my vocabulary in respiratory issues and paediatrics, in Spanish and Italian, has expanded drastically. So I suppose I should thank you for that. You've saved me some hours on Duolingo at least. Although, having said that, Duolingo is free. Hospitals and private doctors are not. But since we started this journey together without gap cover, I suppose you're just living up to your already pricey reputation.

I'm not sure I'm ready to write about the emotions I experienced when we were in hospital together, or in the days which preceded our stay. It was strange, terrifying, not to be able to coerce you into cracking a smile with something so elementary as a tongue sticking out of my mouth at you. Your eyes seemed distant, confused maybe, at whatever it was you were experiencing (how I love them, by the way, despite bearing no resemblance to my own). Culture shock and resentment at your mother, no doubt, the dispenser of the ventolin through the dreaded plastic spaceship. And fear, I could feel your fear.

There's this cliché in English (it's also in a Joni Mitchell song - remember that, because it will give you street cred in decades to come): 'you don't know what you've got til it's gone.' I suppose that's all I can say about those early December days now. You went somewhere, and I (we) were desperate to have you back. My love for you was fierce from the moment I heard your heartbeat. But it grew fiercer, if it were at all possible, in Room 112 of Monfalcone Hospital.

It is perhaps easier to write about the feeling of having 'you' back, and to tell you about the myriad adventures you have been on in the past few weeks. You've slept through five flights and about 22 hours of flying time. You've walked (or rather, have been walked) every day, from the outskirts of London through to Madrid, to small parts of my second home in Italy, and around the infinite canals of Amsterdam. You've seen loads and loads of Christmas lights, which you love. You've experienced -8 degrees, seen a real Picasso and Warhol, and gazed at a Banksy in the MOCO museum. You've seen the inside of a fair number of dimly lit bars and have consoled us, perhaps unknowingly, when we've had to part with almost R200 for a glass of wooded Chardonnay.

You've been to an Asian restaurant for Christmas Eve, very unGerman of you (and of your father, of course, but I was the one who made the booking). You've met some of the very closest people in my life, scattered across the old continent. You've seen me cry, a fair amount. Crying is a healthy release, although I'm not encouraging you to try it any more than you have done thus far in your little life. Unless, of course, you need to. Don't hold back on expressing emotions, it's an unhealthy pattern to get into. I'll tell you more about that when you're a bit older. Until then, you can be assured that I've bought more than enough picture books about feelings from the most incredible shop we discovered in Amsterdam, the School of Life.

We have experienced our first Christmas as a nuclear family, although Roger and Sophie were in absentia. I bought you a ridiculous outfit from a charity shop for one pound. I then spent even more money on equally ridiculous Christmas decorations, and we gave you your first set of presents for an occasion. They did involve practical gifts, cutlery and very cool (I promise) silicone crockery. I'm not sure they were your favourite. As is customary with everything at present, you tried to eat all your gains, including the wrapping paper. It's a step up from craft beer coasters, which you seem drawn to of late. Christmas wasn't exactly traditional. We've decided that seared tuna and prawns are our Christmas Day meals for the foreseeable future, combined with at least an entire packet of Dutch stroopwafels.

And what about you, then, Squeakicles? Well, you STILL can't read or write, and you still prefer 'mele e banane' as your falling-asleep song. Your hair is still blonde and your eyes are still blue, although apparently, and I do still keep checking, you did actually come from my womb. You have a range of new sounds and you like to kick us awake in the morning. You still adore your cow, which is actually a horse.

Sadly, your blonde hair has grown and you're losing your Mohawk. I may have to introduce gel before you hit your teens.

It has been quite a ride, Squeaks. Unexpected turns at many a corner. Perhaps I've learnt some resilience. What I do know for sure is that I wouldn't have made it with so much as half a smile on my face were it not for the incredible people around us, the messages, the amber beads, the laughs, the sneaking me out of hospital for a stolen moment of reprieve, the love of family, and the beauty of friendships that hold across distance.

Today is the last day of the year. I am in bed with a fever. I've been ordered to sleep, but I couldn't let this letter come late. Happy New Year, buddy. It might not have been exactly what I imagined, but best learn that lesson young.

Magical moments often emerge out of tough places.

You are a perennial magical moment, in places wonderful and in places tough.

Love you, Mom.