‘I looked down at my beautiful child, swathed in bandages, an IV in your tiny, pudgy hand, and I realised in that moment that I wasn’t a good mother. I felt like I didn’t deserve you. I didn’t have the capability to look after you and continue my career, but neither could I find a job that let me keep you with me. If I’d been older I would have found some way to teach instead but no one was going to send their child to someone who was barely more than a child herself.
