"The minutes before we hear a cry are torture, but the relief is ecstasy"

Irish Examiner editor Tom Fitzpatrick had to wait outside the maternity hospital until he was called to the delivery room shortly before the birth of his second child. Once again, he was overcome by emotion

PURE PERFECTION: Tom Fitzpatrick with his daughter who was born last month. 

In the days leading up to our little girl’s arrival last month, we’re told maternity restrictions are being lifted. The relief is unimaginable. The prospect of not being with my wife and our newborn child hung over our house like a cloud for nine uncertain, fearful months.

During the periods of lockdown, our two-year-old daughter has played alone, confused why she can’t hug family, including her grandparents. We haven’t been able to call on friends and family for support.

My daughter and I have stood in the car park for every screening. I wait each time to see my wife walk out of the building, hoping she’s not upset. Women go in for checks before her, and their partners are called in from the car park to hear the worst news imaginable.

Now it looks like I’ll be there to hold my wife’s hand and to make sure she’s looked after. It looks like I’ll be allowed to do the absolute minimum I can do: be there.

But I’m still not allowed in with her when we get to the hospital. Initially, it appears I can stay. Then I can’t. The staff are unclear on the rules themselves, or possibly don’t want to be the ones to break the bad news.

After watching my wife walk off, alone and unaided, to a ward she’s never seen and people she’s never met, I walk to the car, worry over whether there will be a phone signal, and return to the hospital entrance.

I wait outside and call her every five minutes. She’s alone in a room, and doesn’t know when she’ll be seen.

When I finally do get called, I go through the makeshift Covid screening hut, my temperature is taken and I fill out a form to say I don’t have Covid before I bolt to the delivery room.

The minutes before we hear a cry are torture but the relief is ecstasy. How is it that someone I’ve only known for 10 seconds can reduce me to tears in a room full of strangers? The mixture of concern and happiness is an odd one, and something I didn’t relish feeling again, second time around, but the first sight and hold of our newborn is pure joy.

The confusion quickly returns. No-one can tell us whether I can book a visit later that day. Initially, we’re told yes, then no (it later transpires there had been a Covid scare and visitors were barred for 24 hours).

I kiss my wife and my baby girl goodbye after less than three hours together, walk out the door and don’t see them for a day and a half. None of it makes sense. It’s inhumane to ask women to do this alone.

The car-park fathers dutifully book their time slots and hover outside until the allotted ‘visiting’ time, only to be booted out an hour later.

I arrive mere minutes early for my assigned visiting time the next day and am sternly rebuked and told to wait outside with around 15 other dads, biting my tongue in case I’m denied my only chance to see them.

Over the course of four days, I visit them for a little over two hours in total at the time when they need support the most.

Each time I leave, I’m angry at having to, but the elation sticks. We have our second daughter. My wife’s courage knows no bounds.

Does it make it any less poignant, nerve-wracking the second time? No. But the high points are indescribable. The smell, the feel, the pride, the love, the relief as my wife recovers and our baby feeds, cries, and does all the other two things that babies do.

She looks exactly like our first when she’s born. A few days later that’s gone, replaced by a familiar-looking stranger.

She is perfection.