When I was 24 weeks pregnant I went to Jinemed (a private hospital)  here in Turkey and was told that I would be having a third boy. We decided he would be called Emil Francis, and I began to imagine Anton and Emil's progression through life together. In England, when I was 37 weeks pregnant, we went for another scan to check the position of the placenta and suddenly the sonographer was saying 'Have you bought lots of blue?' Having come to terms with never having a girl (I don't want to have any more children) and having started whispering to 'Emil', I felt some shock and shame at the sudden rush of hope that I was about to be told that our baby, now so close to being born, was a female of the species. The sonographer spent a long time looking before calling another doctor for a second opinion. Then she put a still of our daughters genitals on the screen, highlighted in a brighter white. There, in a strange moment of intimacy with the body of our unborn daughter we saw her perfect, minute vagina and labia.

Having spent weeks imagining Emil we felt a kind of loss that he didn't actually exist, but at the same time giddy that it seemed that we would, after all, be raising a daughter. This development came as no surprise to my Turkish neighbours who had for some weeks felt quite sure I was having a girl (even knitting a cardigan embroidered with flowers) because 'being pregnant with girl children makes the mother ugly'. (I forgot to tell the antenatal team that they should be determining sex with before and after pictures.)

Neve's birth feels quite odd in that it was so undramatic there doesn't seem much to report. It had the classic Cooke flavour of having lots of people around just getting on with their own stuff. Chris dozing on the sofa. Bethany and Brendan having their hearts listened to by the midwives. Me being left to my own instincts. Ville being gentle. The moment it all comes down to, and the one I won't forget is the one of perfect, silent, serenity when Neve's head was out and my wonderful midwife was gently stroking her. A couple of minutes later she was in my arms.

So now I am raising a girl and there suddenly seems that there is a lot to think about. Back when Ruskin was born I would have felt very strange about having a girl. How could I have begun to raise a girl to be strong, independent and stand up for herself when I could manage none of those things?  Now I have found the perfect man with whom to raise a daughter, and I have grown up a bit too. Still though, there are a few issues I am working out and one or two areas where I would prefer Neve to do as I say, not as I do!

I am sure that raising a child of your own gender can have a particular set of emotional complications. I want Neve to far exceed my small accomplishments, and to have no trouble celebrating her when she does. But I must not hope that she lives a life I wish I did, but get on with being the example for the person I want to enable her to be. I desperately want her to be proud of me, as I am of my Mum.

I think there is a difference in our attitude to Neve, because she is a girl that is totally to do with gender stereotypes. I am sure I am quicker to treat her dry skin. Ville and I describe her as just like Anton but with thinner, finer features. Is this actually true?

So Neve, as I am sure I can rest assured that when we reach the time to which this advice applies you will listen to none of it, and knowing that I could not fall out of love with you whatever you did (though when you are choosing isms please not fascism or racism), here are some of the things I wish I could have told my younger self. Feel free to ignore them, I would have.

Confidence.

Lacking confidence stands in the way of everything. You will soon notice that people who do well have an abundance of this (often because of a belief that wealth equals worth, or that it doesn't matter because you can get your way anyway). People are rarely judged on their quiet merits. There are huge amounts of idiots in top positions because they have more confidence than they should have. Never be afraid of having too much confidence, keep your modesty for your interior dialogue and walk tall. You will get much more done this way. Even as I write this something recoils in me, having been taught modesty above assertion.

Have confidence in your appearance. I have wasted countless moments on feeling that my imperfections were all that people could see. Now, at 39, I understand that I will never be more appealing than I was during those times, and I should have enjoyed them more. There is so much to be enjoyed in life, and your experience can be so vast. So try not to linger (as I may have done once or twice) on being a size bigger, or your hair not cascading, or your skin lacking that 'just-airbrushed' quality. I wish I could give you the gift of never comparing yourself to others, of knowing that you have the perfect nose, bum, chin and thighs for you. And I hope that you, unlike me, have a gap in-between spots and wrinkles.

Clothes.

I had thought vaguely about dressing you in a way that does not indulge the frills and embellishment that will later be used to make you attractive to men. However, I love clothes and will not do myself out of dressing you beautifully. Women dress at least as much for themselves and their friends, and looking fantastic does not stop someone being strong or feminist. I am very grateful I did not have to burn my bra. I picture you in your late teens knowing just the fabric, or piece of jewellery, to subtly enhance. The reality may well be far more dramatic. Living in Istanbul which, for reasons of history, has people looking far more homogeneous than they should, I will be delighted if you have the confidence to stand out. And equally so if you choose to pretend to fit in.

Food.

This is the area where I think I will have to actually walk the talk if you are to have any chance of avoiding the perpetual 'if only I was a bit slimmer'. How many days have I actually not given a moments consideration to my weight or eaten wholly without guilt? Not enough. Definitely not enough. I desperately want you to live enjoying food, enjoying your body, and never dwelling on this petty concern that has plagued me. I want to bring you all the best things that this world can offer to taste and enjoy. I want food to only be about nourishment and pleasure. And so I am doing my very best to live that way.

There is so much more to say but this is too long already, and I can hear you starting to wriggle....

This morning, his second at the office, Ville set off on the 6.05 vapur to Kabataş so he can be back before the children are sleeping. Now after lunch Neve sleeps and Anton is watching nursery rhymes and I drink tea while watching the downstairs neighbours weekly ritual of putting all their rugs on the railings outside our windows, and beating them hard. As neither of this elderly couple even walk that well it is a sight to see. I feel they are doing enough housework for all of us, so its fine if I take this opportunity to write.

Anton really wants to go to see his Grandma in England. I suspect that as I have been ill this week he is a bit bored, and he has very fresh memories of the daily adventures he went on during our stay in England for Neve's birth. Being the eldest of 9 children (three adopted, two of which have Down's syndrome), and close to them all, I really want to record some stuff, but its harder than I thought. Being a Cooke is such a huge part of my identity, but there are many different individuals that make up this group, and I would never presume to speak for any of them.

My parents have made a complete success of raising this many children. I know this because every single one of my siblings is a stable, interesting, generous, reasonably drug and hang-up free person. Raising kids there is a terror that whatever you do, some force (self-hate, heroin, whatever current nightmare you have) will take them from you. It happens. But it hasn't happened to the Cooke kids and that gives me courage that all the love I pour into mine will work.

Once when I was bemoaning the fact that our children will remember so little of this (mostly) happy time before they start school, Mum said something to the effect that during the first few years you are creating the paper on which your children will write their lives. I want my children to draw the lines of their lives with a certain aplomb. A bit Aubrey Beardsley, a bit Gerald Scarfe. I want them to write their stories with confidence, ink will flow freely, because the paper I am making with wood-pulp patience and cotton cuddles, is going to be the good quality, lightweight kind: it will have a certain luminosity. I imagine it completely smooth but if you look very, very closely you can see the richly interwoven fibres, it is eco-friendly, the perfect surface on which to write a life with ease, or at least not to add resistance when  life lacks flourish. This image has helped me through many moments when I felt like speaking less gently or ending a game quicker.

Yet here I am writing a blog. Anton is playing alone when he would prefer to play with me. I could be making vegetable rainbows. Its a complex balancing exercise between being led by a child's whims and not going insane with the boredom of not interacting with adults. We were so convinced that we were all my Mum ever wanted to do, that once when she told me in a moment of exasperation that sometimes she imagined another life, I ran to tell my sister Helen as if it was sensational tabloid news.

My Mum has also taught me never to beat yourself up if you can't keep your cool, but it has to be said that my parent's very, very rarely lost theirs. They managed to achieve the ideal family set up where we saw them as a unit and that their time together was sacred. I remember once being very sick (I was probably around 8) and they sat me on the sofa with them downstairs, past 8 o'clock! Everything looked and felt different in this land of after the kids are in bed.

Being their first-born, and understanding how I feel about mine, I love to think about how they felt about the tiny me. Mum recently told me how after I was born I was taken upstairs in the hospital where all the babies slept together. It had been a quite difficult labour, as I was breech, and she was ordered not to leave her bed. Of course, being Mum, she crept along the corridors and up the stairs and snuck in to feed me. She avoided me ever having a bottle.

Since I started living here more than there, my relationship with my Mum has transformed a little again. Ville and I have spent a total of 18 weeks living with my parents over the births of Anton and Neve. Mum was there for both of these births. While I was labouring in the bath, during Anton's home birth, Mum helped me manage the almost continuous contractions just prior to transition, when the gas and air I had been looking forward to didn't work. During Neve's recent birth (again in their bath) Mum played with Anton, removing  a big worry. There are lovely pictures of them doing biscuit decoration so he would be fully occupied, though he didn't need to do many, it being over so quick.

Mum now shows her love in the meticulous packing of cases, by buying porridge, chorizo and parma ham to squeeze in amongst toys and clothes for the kids. I also feel that I understand her better since I have moved here and we have in common not living in our birth country any more. I understand what it means not to speak with ease (or barely at all in my case). Mum met Dad when she was an au-pair in Brighton and he was a student there. Missing her native Austria she had gone to check out the Catholic society and found herself interested in the only non Catholic there, my Dad having just gone along with friends. I love Brighton for many reasons, but most of all for it being the setting for their romance. Mum and Dad decided to marry during a long correspondence when Mum returned home. Ville and I organised our new life in hundreds of facebook messages. Not quite as romantic but I am glad that life is much easier for long distance lovers nowadays. E-mail, skype, Easyjet: I owe you a debt of gratitude for allowing me to avoid feeling as my Mum did every time she left loved ones behind. And to Mum and Dad I will always be grateful for my paper, grimy with eraser marks and crossings out for sure, but good enough to write this adventure on.

Jake, Mum and my brother Stefan.