Friendship interrupted

They were best mates. Then one had a baby, while the other struggled to conceive. They share their brutally honest takes on what happens when motherhood affects friendship

- Helen Pidd and Alexandra Topping

HELEN

The night I first met Lexy, I was supposed to be going on a date. I was 25 and had yet to really make friends since moving to London, so when she asked me for a drink I said yes. The Guardian tended to hire only one young reporter a year in those days, and Lexy was the fresh face for 2006 (I was 2004 - it had been a rather lonely first two years).

She had just returned from living in Paris and exuded a certain French cool. Her wardrobe seemed to have been sourced almost entirely from a little vintage shop in the Marais, which would have made her insufferable were it not fatally undermined by her coming from Skelmersdale, the least glamorous town in the Lancashire coalfields. She was funny and clever and generous with her compliments (I was thrilled when she said she liked my shoes - metallic blue and silver Mary Janes) and when I reluctantly trotted off on my date, I spent the night wishing I was with her instead.

Everything was more fun with Lexy. There is something very special about making a best friend in early adulthood, when your brain is fully developed and your personality formed but your responsibilities do not extend beyond paying the rent and turning up to work on time. You're not mates simply because your names went after each other in the register, or because you were lumped together in the same university halls. Lexy and I were kindred spirits: the babies of the Guardian newsroom, two blond northerners let loose in noughties London. She soon became both my biggest cheerleader and harshest critic - two essential attributes for any proper pal.