One day you're staring at the little blue line on the pregnancy test whispering, "oh my God" over and over again, and the next you've got a Spacewagon with a gang of children the back. You're sleep-deprived, you've stopped wearing heels (can't chase toddlers in them); you've resigned yourself to baggy wash-and-wear fashion (anything that has to be drycleaned has long since mouldered away from babyvomit) and you've promised yourself a well-earned rest - in the year 2010.
Sometimes you don't know why you have a spacewagon anyway, since leaving the house involves such hassle - finding shoes that match for all the children, retrieving the car keys from the washing machine and packing a nappy bag the size of the overnight case you used to bring on romantic weekends. If you're really well-organised, you remember to brush your hair and put on the last bit of lipstick that hasn't been used as a crayon.
The Brennans are a Spacewagon family - no other vehicle can hold them all at once. Suzanne Brennan calls it her "MPV" - multi-pregnancy vehicle. For Suzanne and her husband, Stephen, lots of children means lots of play - for the adults too. Stephen is already looking forward to groupwindsurfing lessons in a few years' time when all five Brennan offspring are ready to try aqua flight.
"Okay, so we're broke and the food bill is rising by the week, but everywhere you turn there's something fun happening. It's like having a second childhood," says Stephen, a self-employed businessman in the clothing trade. The Brennan's eldest children are Conor (7) and Mark (6). When last heard from, Mark was using an upsidedown dictionary to marry Aoife (2) and Rachel (2), the two girl-triplets. Patrick is the third triplet and the third boy. The Archbishop will be glad to hear the Brennan's "little miracles" were definitely unplanned.
The smooth and sane running of the Brennan family relies on an intricate system of supports, which includes a part-time home help, paid for with the children's allowance. "If one link in the chain goes, you've had it," says Suzanne Brennan, with the weary and knowing look of a veteran juggler. The logistics of a trip to the shops are like an Army operation. When the couple were invited to a wedding in Italy recently, they simply had to say no.
Suzanne works full-time in the home and when Stephen arrives home in the evening, he throws himself wholeheartedly into childcare. "I feel privileged and proud to be a full-time mother in the home, and I realise I am one of the lucky ones, in a sense, in that our mortgage is small and my children are all healthy. But at the same time being a full-time mother is very stressful. I would resent it if mothers working outside the home got something from the Government to help them pay for childcare, and Stephen and I got nothing. I'm working too, don't forget," she says.
"I think the Government should increase children's allowance, so that even if you are in the home full-time, you feel you are actually contributing something to the family financially. If you bring someone into your home to help with childcare, you pay them. Every day my husband walks out the door to work and is paid; I stay home to do my job and I'm not paid."
Suzanne, who was a PA in Ardmore Studios before the triplets were born, would like to work part-time but "with three babies you are stuck. You can't go anywhere. Going out to work is virtually impossible so you are dependent on just one income. In two years', time when the triplets go to school, hopefully I can get a part-time job.
"I would like to be out working - not because I don't love being with my children, but because I want to contribute to the household, to help with the ESB bill and to have the flexibility of being able to buy something I want, rather than asking all the time."
Families such as the Brennans need childcare too - even if it's only to have a cup of tea in peace. But affordable part-time childcare is non-existent. Even supermarket creches won't take children under the age of two, Suzanne points out. "Whether you have one baby or four - you really are stuck."
Jill Clinch is also a Spacewagon mum - although she says she'd rather have a Jaguar XJS. In the back you'll see her three children, Katy (5), Harvey (4) and Dougie (2) and she loves having a family of this size. At the same time, she feels Irish women should stand up for themselves and insist on more government support.
"I have three sisters living in England and Scotland who have free nursery places for their children, which they are entitled to regardless whether or not they are working outside the home. The child benefit in the UK is four times what it is here. I think that in the Republic we have some catching up to do, particularly with women's issues."
Jill, who is married to Paul, the MD of a pharmaceutical company, works full-time in the home by choice. "I'm very lucky I can afford to do that, but we still don't have enough money. For me, living on a tight budget is worth it because I want to be there for my kids until they are old enough to go to school. That's just me. I know women who want to be at work full-time and that's okay too. "I think every mother should get some kind of allowance (as recommended by the Commission on the Family), whether or not they work outside the home. If women want to spend it on childcare, that's their choice. We should also have subsidised pre-school education with enough places for everyone.
"For trained midwives like me to get back to work part-time, there should be on-site creches for staff in the hospitals, especially when you think about midwives who want to go back to work and still breastfeed their children for six-to-nine months."
Does she think we'll ever catch up to our European sisters? "Women, I find, have a major guilt complex, an attitude of `stick your head in the sand and get on with it and it might just go away'. Women should stand up and shout for what they need. The major issues of the women's movement in the past have been divorce, abortion and contraception - today it's childcare."
