My Wife Started Going Into Labour In An Audi R8

On the face of it, it seems like I’m having a good and uncomplicated day. The sun is shining and a 4.2-litre Audi R8 has just been dropped off at my place. Naturally, as soon as I get home from the office, the first thing I want to do is to take it for a drive.

My heavily pregnant wife informs me that we need a few things from the local supermarket, so I do the responsible thing and take her with me; taking a massive detour on my favourite local roads, obviously. As she carefully clambers into the low-slung car - not the easiest task for someone eight-and-a-half months up the duff - Rachel informs me that she’d been getting stomach pains for the last few hours, but she doesn’t think it’s contractions. I don’t think anything of it. After all, our little man isn’t due for almost another two weeks.

However, it doesn’t take long for those pains to get worse. “I think this might be it,” she says. This sets my mind violently flicking between two very different trains of thought:

“I really do like the rear bias of this four-wheel drive system. Oh god I might become a dad in the next few hours!”

“Hey, this V8 version feels like a much better match for the road than the V10. Bloody hell, am I really ready for parenthood?”

“This really is a fabulous package, maybe when they’ve depreciated enough, I could buy one. Uh oh, what the hell am I going to do about the R8’s planned photoshoot at the weekend?”

I scythe through a particularly pleasant set of sweeping bends, while Rachel’s pains arrive more frequently and with greater intensity. There’s little doubt in either of our minds that these are contractions, and that very soon there’ll be three of us to think about rather than two.

We get out at the supermarket, and hurry around, grabbing any supplies we might need. I drive us back home where we can do nothing but wait - these days delivery wards want you to wait as long as possible before heading over. However, fairly soon, there’s a problem: Rachel can no longer feel the baby moving. We ring the delivery ward - which is in the next town over - and they want to see her right away. We want to get there rather briskly, so of course the car we get into is the R8, albeit with a towel placed on the passenger side, as waters breaking on posh Nappa leather would result in an awkward call to Audi’s press office people….

After making rather swift progress and trying not to panic, we’re nearing the hospital and Rachel is starting to feel him move once more. To celebrate, I change down a few gears and prod the throttle while going under a tunnel, but a little too harshly, bringing on a rather painful contraction. Sorry, love.

We’re given the all clear at the hospital and are told to come back later when the labour is more advanced, something we do in the humble family Golf GTI, given the extra seat we’d need. Six hours later and our baby boy arrived, ready to make our lives massively more complicated and stressful, but on the whole fuller. I can’t wait to tell him how his journey into this world started in a mid-engined supercar.