My baby girl was born on 16/04/2026 at the NMH. My wife endured a long, exhausting labour before eventually needing a c-section.
It was an incredibly stressful experience — watching the love of my life go through so much pain, and then having to make all those anxious, split-second decisions. It’s not a place anyone ever wants to be, and it hit even harder as first-time parents in a foreign country with no family nearby and an entirely different culture around us.
But I just wanted to extend a heartfelt thanks to all the dads I bumped into in those hallways — the ones who, like me, looked like a complete mess. Those few words of encouragement, and that unspoken feeling of we’re all in this together, really helped me power through.
And now here I am — sitting at home at 7:00 AM with my one-week-old, trying to thank a bunch of kind strangers on the internet for helping me get through one of the hardest moments of my life — while simultaneously figuring out dad duties and learning every little cue my tiny princess gives me.
Moments like this really make you appreciate people. The friendly Irish folks truly are the stuff of legends. 🍀