Birth story: Maire Devine

My husband looked at me in disbelief. Had labour really started just when he was looking forward to steak for tea? I managed it home, cooked his beloved tea and persuaded my daughter that Santa definitely would not come unless she put on her pyjamas.

We left my daughter with her favourite aunt and headed across town to the hospital. The dashboard clock showed ten to nine. Plenty of time, my husband said, since the pains weren’t coming that quickly. The drink-driving police were out in force, but my husband, spotting his chance to fulfil a lifetime ambition, took a short cut down a one-way street. In Belfast? Didn’t he know you could get shot for that kind of thing? We were stopped, but before the police could get a word in edgeways, my husband pointed to me in the passenger seat. By now, no acting was needed. I was about to give birth. They waved us through hastily, while my husband whooped it up at the wheel.

As soon as I stepped into the lift, and before I could make it to the labour ward, my waters broke. This baby was in a hurry. By the time I made it onto the delivery table the contractions were coming thick and fast. My midwife was a small, chubby bundle of motherliness, who regaled me with stories of her own children – all eight of them. I have vague memories that some, or all of them, played hockey for Ireland.

I threw up, first over the midwife, then, to my delight, over my husband. Nine thirty on the dot, my beautiful baby boy was born. Somehow, I’d got it into my head that I was expecting a girl. When they announced it was a boy, I stupidly asked them to check again. But boy it was – all nine pounds, thirteen ounces of him. He was the longest, skinniest thing I‘d ever seen, and he emerged hollering the place down. Within a short time, he was latched on to my breast, where he stayed quite happily for the next three years.

This month my baby will be twenty. He’s just over six foot tall, skinny as a rake, and feeding will still be his prime objective on Christmas day.

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