One bleary dawn, when we were still counting her age in weeks, not months, I phoned 111 in a panic that my baby’s temperature was too low. “She seems fine but Google said it could be hypothermia,” I told the operator. She asked me to take my own temperature – also shockingly low – and gently suggested that our thermometer might be broken. It was.

Since then, we’ve seen many more bleary dawns and medical adventures. There was the meningitis rash that turned out to be irritation from my husband’s beard, the cough that might have sounded like a barking seal if I’d ever met one to know and the time she puked up a leaf (yes). Weaning was a white-knuckle ride, and starting childcare was every bit the procession of lurgy people promised it would be. Each time she’s been genuinely ill, my mental health has been put through a mangle, but I’ve survived. And she has thrived – something I never take for granted.

Most of the doctors and nurses I’ve dealt with have been kind, reassuring me I’ve done the right thing in being cautious. But what I’ve needed, more often than not, is for someone to tell me to take my temperature again; figuratively if not literally. Just to ask how I’m doing too.

At first, it felt completely natural to transpose all my health anxiety onto my daughter, swapping out my wellbeing for hers. But in hindsight, I realise how jarring it was to put my body through the biggest trial of its life and then watch the world switch its focus to a whole other person, as though I was merely the packaging she came in. So when I see new mums these days, I always try to make my first question about them. How are they feeling? What do they need?

She’s now a boisterous and opinionated 17-month-old, and as time has passed and our bond has strengthened, I’ve found my anxiety easing. I do know my child now. I know that when she ‘seems fine’, she probably is. Though I still creep into her room from time to time just to check she’s still breathing.

“I always knew I had health anxiety, but motherhood kicked it into overdrive”