Grandmother Claire to the rescue with back-seat baby delivery
Claire O’Driscoll was asleep at her home in Ballymacoda at 3am yesterday when she received a phone call from her son-in-law Austin O’Donoghue to say that his wife, Sinéad, was going into hospital to have their second child.
Claire had promised Sinéad, 30, she would be with her at the delivery so she rushed to be at her daughter’s side en route to Cork University Maternity Hospital. (CUMH). Sinéad wasn’t due for another week and only went on maternity leave from her job at Tesco in Youghal last week.
Speaking to Cork’s 96FM yesterday, Claire explained how the drama unfolded in the back of the jeep.
“We got as far as Carrigtwohill and she got a really bad pain there. I jumped into the back seat of the car and rubbed her back. The next thing we were going up to the Wilton roundabout and she said “Mam, I have got to push.”
“There and then the delivery came. The waters just went and the baby came with it. She (the baby) was beautiful. It was the experience of a lifetime.”
Claire said she wasn’t “nervous until afterwards” and that they didn’t even stop the Honda CRV jeep when her daughter delivered baby Siobhán, who weighed in at 6lbs 14oz.
Sinéad and baby Siobhán were deemed fit and healthy yesterday and were expected to be discharged from hospital last night or early this morning.
Baby Siobhán is sister to Sinéad’s daughter, Denise, who turned three in March. The family lives in Knockadoon in Ballymacoda, East Cork, around the corner from grandmother Claire who works as a carer for the HSE.
Young grandmother of eight, Claire, 49, said she was proud to have delivered a healthy baby. She added that going to bed on Sunday night she never could have imagined the events that would unfold in the early hours of the morning.
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