Special Delivery
But not the baby… Cardine’s fella had ordered a takeaway!
There’s nothing like that moment when you first cradle your baby in your arms. ‘Hello, Aiyana,’ I cooed as the midwife handed my daughter over to me.
I was overjoyed, but exhausted after a tough labour.
My dream of a home birth hadn’t gone to plan.
I’d been rushed into hospital with high blood pressure, and needed gas and air to help with the terrible pain.
But, almost 14 hours later, here she was.
‘Do you want to hold her now?’ I asked my partner Tariq, 23, handing over our little bundle of joy.
He’d been with me all day, along with my mum Joanne, 39.
Just then, I spotted a pile of greasy, scrunched-up paper bags lying on the hospital trolley in my room. ‘What’s all that?’ I asked. ‘That was Tariq’s dinner,’ Mum laughed.
It’d been a long day, and there hadn’t been an opportunity to eat for hours.
‘He got a bit peckish waiting around for his daughter to arrive, so got himself a burger and chips delivered,’ she said.
I looked across at the father of my daughter, rolling my eyes.
‘You’re lucky I didn’t sneak out for an after-dinner fag while you were pushing,’ he joked. ‘But your mum wouldn’t let me out of her sight!’
With five kids, Mum knew anything could happen. If he’d missed the birth, I’d have been absolutely fuming. Lucky for him, he didn’t! Turns out my dad Wayne, 50, was the same.
When I was born, his friend dropped off a KFC for his dinner at the hospital!
Men, eh?
Everyone’s been ribbing Tariq about it since. But dads have to eat, too! They don’t get food on the labour ward like Mums do.
Tariq even found the delivery guy – Chris Whitmore – afterwards through social media to say thanks for one of the best deliveries of his life…
After Aiyana, of course!