Is giving birth at Christmas more problematic than at any other time of the year? Maire Devine’s baby made an early appearance after Christmas shopping and Belfast traffic jams

December 20th – three days to the due date, but still my second baby showed no sign of moving. I went for an antenatal check up and, to my horror, the doctor announced that I’d have to be induced, if nothing happened within the next few days. Having had a natural birth for my daughter three years earlier, I wanted the same for this baby.

‘But you don’t want to be in hospital at Christmas,’ I was told. Maybe not, but I didn’t want to be induced either. Not for the sake of Christmas.

I phoned my mother as soon as I got home. She was a midwife so, surely, she’d know how to get things going. No chance – ‘You’ll know when it moves down, dear.’ I decided against the gin and hot bath routine, and set about tidying the house and chopping wood for the fire, in the hope that would do the trick. But at the end of the day, I lumbered off to bed, fed up and still in one piece.

Early the next morning there was still no sign of movement, but, making my way to the bathroom, I suddenly felt an almighty shove somewhere at the bottom of my very swollen abdomen. By the time I made the loo, I’d had the show.

Throughout the day I was queasy and uncomfortable but still no pains. We took my daughter Christmas shopping and walked up and down Belfast’s Royal Avenue. News flashed across the screens of the TV’s in the shop windows, announcing an end to Northern Ireland’s first hunger strike. I took that to be a good omen; maybe there would be peace in this baby’s lifetime. At six o’clock the first real contraction kicked in, with full force. We were looking at toys and I gripped my daughter’s hand so hard, she yanked it free and fell into the cracker display.

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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