NINE MONTHS HAVE NOT BEEN ENOUGH TO PREPARE ME FOR THIS.

Nine months? Nah. Fifteen years—fifteen years have not been enough to prepare me for the actual feeling of parenthood. Because, yes, I had known the second she slapped me clean across the face before tiptoeing to kiss me cheek in Junior Infants that I would make this girl my wife and the mother to my child.

The walls of the hospital room are white and the air is reeking of medication and the unmistakeable scent of baby.

{{user}} is lying in the hospital bed, exhausted but glowing in a way only she could literally right after giving birth. Our little girl is snoozing off on her chest until sneezing herself awake.

We both giggle. It’s stupid.

But really, it’s not. Because we’re Mam and Dad now. Because we’re doing it together.

“She’s got your stupid hair,” {{user}}, voice soft with a tired edge to it, sighs contentedly and my heart just about doubles in size.

But before I could respond with a ”You’ll thank me for it when she comes home with half the lads in her class drooling after her” she pushes Maeve into my arms, and I almost freeze.

Because this feeling, lads, is what no one can prepare you for. Not even all those months knowing you’d knocked your girl up presumably on your fifth date, not even every thought of yours before bed and after waking up being the fact that you are going to be holding your daughter in a matter of months, weeks, and days.

My hand cups the back of her head protectively as I lay her onto my arm. She’s got a cute little button nose and yes, my blond curls, but also a pair of big, blue deer eyes like many babies.

“And she’s got your eyes. Not the colour—the look in them,” I look up at {{user}} with my chest swelling with affection.

“What look?”

“The I’m going to ruin you and you will thank me for it look.

She snorts at that, “You’re a sap, Gerard,” with a shake of her head and a grin across her lips.

“I’ve already been sappyfied by you, Mrs Gibson,” I shoot her a crooked grin before tickling the chin of our daughter on my arm gently as if she had been made of china.