What it's like to have a baby in Zone 1

"Sorry love. There’s a bar brawl in Hackney. All our ambulances are tied up right now. But don’t worry, I’ll talk you through getting this baby out."

I’ll never forget the cheerful north London tones of Harry, the 999 operator who coached my husband Yanni through delivering our first child, via an iPhone propped on the side of the bath. Yanni had to contort himself round the splash guard to do the catching — we live in an 800-square-foot, one-and-a-half bedroom flat in a Hoxton apartment block. Our bathroom is the side of a postage stamp (or not far off it). The fact that the boiler had conked out — it was February — only added to the drama.

Growing up in rural Oxfordshire, this is not how I envisaged my first hours of motherhood. To me, childhood meant running through muddy fields in a nightie and wellies, making up mad stories. It meant unselfconscious freedom and fresh air. Even after I moved to London in 2003 and met Yanni two years later, I always imagined I’d have moved to the countryside — or at the very least to the suburbs — by the time I was ready to pop one out. My sister Emma, 37, is a forester, and her two girls, Esme, seven, and Ruby, four, were growing up exactly how I’d imagined mine might: walking their rescue mutt through wildflower meadows and crafting with salvaged wood.

Yet there we were, DIYing our delivery in our tiny, zone 1 flat. Yes, the DIY bit could have been prevented if I hadn’t insisted that my five-centimetre-dilated contractions were ‘warm-ups for next week’, and gone out for a green juice instead of calling the home birth team. As for the zone 1 part? That takes a bit more explaining.

Rewind five years and my friends began to follow a pattern: peeling off to rural commuter towns such as Bicester or St Albans, or at least family-friendly Victorian terraces in Wandsworth and Cricklewood. They acquired cars, cats and gardens. Yanni and I would visit them for barbecues and birthday parties and marvel at their new ‘adulthood’ — then return to the city and resume our regular lives: days spent working, evenings at the theatre, restaurants or house parties.

In the back of my mind, I assumed that this was temporary, and that eventually — when we felt ready — we’d follow our friends’ rural pilgrimages. Sure enough, when Yanni and I started to try for a child, we began scouring the internet for suitable properties outside the city. After six months, we found one we wanted — a four-bedroom detached house near my mum in Oxfordshire with a log-burner in the lounge and a kitchen with glass doors that let onto a big sloping garden — all for the same price as our tiny one-bed in Hackney. We made an offer, which was accepted — and I set about compiling a Pinterest board of Soho Farmhouse-on-the-cheap interiors. I’d already decided on the breed of dog (lurcher, obviously).

And yet… I couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that by leaving the capital, we were making a mistake. In the years I’ve lived here, London has seduced me with her energy, her diversity and the layers of stories steeped deep into her bricks. When the purchase of our new home fell through, I was surprised to find my disappointment was tempered with a undeniable sense of relief. I was even more surprised when, soon afterwards, the bigger flat across the corridor from ours came on the market — we snapped it up immediately.

The fact was, I wasn’t ready to leave central London. When Yanni and I told our our-of-town friends and family we’d decided to stay put, it didn’t take long for the questions to start. But isn’t Hackney awful for gangs? What about the knife crime? The drugs? Isn’t the pollution some of the worst in the country? And what about (cue are-they-mad sideways glances) the schools?

Yet we remained steadfast. Which brings me back to that moment in the bathroom. Incredibly, Yanni managed to deliver Artemis alone without a hitch, and by the time the ambulance crew arrived, we were all sobbing happily in the freezing bath. Two years on, I’m deeply relieved we didn’t end up in the shires with a 4x4 and a lurcher.

Why? Well, for one thing, there’s the logistics. My husband is an absolutely committed, hands-on dad, but his job as a sports exec pays better than mine, so I’m still the default for nursery pick-ups, doctor’s visits and two days a week of full-time childcare. Living in central London allows me to juggle work, parenting and play in a way I’d never be able to if I lived further out. Our flat is 200 metres from the Ofsted-outstanding nursery, 100 metres from the GP, and 10 metres from the park.

On one recent Thursday, I pushed the buggy 10 minutes up the street to Tick Tock, a brilliant music group on Canonbury Road (run by Shelley Nelson, a legend on the UK garage scene); spent the afternoon watching Missy practise her engineering skills at the Science Museum; dropped into a Bach to Baby concert in St Andrew’s Church in Barnsbury; settled her to sleep (as a matter of survival, she is now blissfully oblivious to both noise and light); handed over to an awesome local grandmother from the (social) life-saving sitters.co.uk; and was watching Rory Kinnear get his Macbeth on at the National by 7.30pm. That’s pretty hard to beat.

There are also plenty of places to get my nature fix. From the ancient trees of Kew Gardens (with bonus aeroplanes!) to the riverbank in Clissold Park (best play area ever!), I’ve discovered the truth behind the statistic that our capital is 47 per cent green space.

Then there’s the company. There are serious advantages to being the only parents among a community of gay godfathers, single aunts and intentionally child-free couples for whom babysitting is fun. We spent a recent Sunday barbecuing with neighbours lucky enough to have (a smidgen of) outdoor space. Our group ranged from a tech entrepreneur to a vegan yoga teacher. Collectively, we spanned a rainbow of races, nationalities, sexual orientations and political beliefs. Best of all, because these near, dear and crucially childless mates see toddler antics as a novelty, Yanni and I were free to get on the Aperol spritz while they lavished Missy with attention.

Finally — and most importantly — I’ve come to realise just how intrinsic this big, beautiful, ancient-modern city is to my sense of self. Those pre-natal fantasies of baking cookies in the kitchen were just that — a fantasy. I’ve never been any good in the kitchen and would always rather be out and about exploring. Here I can take Missy to my favourite spots — from the Natural History Museum to the window seat of Hoxton’s Friends of Ours. Rarely a day goes by when I don’t feel inspired by my surroundings. London even provided the muse for my first novel. Part satire, part love letter to the capital, it features a mugging on De Beauvoir Road, an existential crisis in Shoreditch Grind and an attack from a mad Celtic boy in an Old Street co-working space. It couldn’t have been born anywhere else.

Of course, there are days when my arms ache from lugging the buggy up and down Tube stairs. There are nights when I lie listening to the sirens and long for the starlit quiet of a country sky. There are mornings when the news reports make me want to build an oak-clad bunker for my precious girl in the Forest of Dean and never come out. Though I also know that by living in one of the world’s most sophisticated and diverse cities, my daughter will have ready access to world-beating healthcare, education and more.

Who knows if this will last forever? We’re currently trying for number two, and although we could squeeze another newborn into the flat, we’d need my book’s film rights to come through to afford another bedroom round here (call me, Abi Morgan!). Perhaps, by the time we’re forced to resume the search we started three years ago, we’ll be simply knackered by the pace and pressure of London. Although, I have my doubts.

The Charmed Life of Alex Moore by Molly Flatt is out now (Pan Macmillan, £14.99), buy it here.