Deans woman delivers great-grandchild

Nov 17 2011 by Allan Valente, West Lothian Courier

A DEANS woman miraculously delivered her great-grandchild in her kitchen last week – 21 years after delivering one of her grandkids in the next room.

Eileen McGowan (68) was on hand more than two decades ago to help daughter Audrey Gray bring baby Joanna into the world in her living room in Muirfield Way.

And she stepped in to deliver little Lucas Shaw in the kitchen of the same house last Wednesday night.

Eileen, who featured in the Courier in 1990 with Audrey and her new granddaughter, has six children, 13 grandchildren and Lucas, who weighed in at 7lb 9oz, is her eighth great-grandchild.

Her grandson, Steven Shaw (29) and Amanda Thomson (27) were expecting Lucas last Wednesday and were grateful to have Eileen around when the mum-to-be went into labour that night.

Eileen said: “Amanda had been having pains since about five o’clock, but nothing too drastic. About 9.15pm they started to get more severe so after that we phoned an ambulance.

“You take pot luck that everything is going to be okay. It took the ambulance 15 to 20 minutes to get here.

“I didn’t panic, I would have if there had been complications, but I didn’t see any point in that.”

Proud dad Steven said: “I got a call from work at about 9.35pm and rushed home. I got back to the house and when I looked at my watch it was 9.44pm and by that time he had been delivered.”

And Steven revealed he knew everything was going to be fine when his gran threw away the phone as she was speaking to an operator from the ambulance service.

“I knew we were in safe hands,” he said.

“She just threw the phone away after saying ‘have to go’ and just got on with it.”

Eileen insisted that the delivery didn’t differ much from the one 21 years ago.

And the great-gran, who was a foster carer for Barnardos for 28 years, was happy to have another story to tell about the house.

She said: “It was just about the same experience as last time, you have got to let them know you’re calm, don’t you?

“There is so much history in the house now and we are a tight-knit family.”

Wednesday’s dramatic events bore a striking resemblance to that first delivery, when Audrey went into labour two weeks early and Eileen delivered her grandchild.

Last week, as was the case 21 years ago, when the paramedics arrived their job had been done. On both occasions all they had to do was cut the umbilical cord and check up on mum and baby.

Eileen added: “I heated a towel and wrapped him up because babies lose heat that quickly after being born.

“A fresh towel out the wash will do just fine.”

Steven said it was a remarkable night and both mum and baby were doing just fine.

He added: “The ambulance came and all the paramedics had to do was cut the cord. They seemed quite surprised. It’s an amazing story.”