From lad to dad

The call came at 5.15 on Saturday morning. "Is this Mr Young? I'm phoning to tell you that your wife has gone into labour. You might like to make your way to the hospital." Oh God. This was it, the call I'd been waiting for. Where were my trousers? Where were my shoes? "Don't panic, Captain Mainwaring."

I'd left Caroline in the Edith Dare Ward of Queen Charlotte's at about 10.45 the previous night. Our baby was due on 13 July, and when she hadn't appeared 12 days later the hospital decided to induce. The magic potion had been administered at 8.45pm and I'd waited two hours before going home. I subsequently learned that Caroline had gone into labour 15 minutes after I'd left, but had put off calling me for as long as possible. By the time I eventually made it to the hospital - wearing odd socks and a sweater the wrong way round - she'd been in labour for seven hours.

There was a time, not so long ago, when I'd still be up at this time in the morning, and by "up" I mean high as a kite. Most people are supposed to sow their wild oats in their twenties, but I'd spent the best part of my thirties in an alcohol-and-cocaine-fuelled blur, shuttling back and forth between London and New York in a vain attempt to keep up with the jet set. Now, at the age of 39, I was living in Shepherd's Bush and about to become a father. How did this happen?

The short answer is, I fell in love. Caroline entered my life in 1997 when she turned up on my doorstep in Manhattan. The little sister of an ex-girlfriend, she'd just landed a job at a big American law firm and was looking for a place to stay. She had a naughty, slightly guilty look, as if she'd just eaten an entire box of chocolates. Her eyes, which were enormous, shone with mischief and her mouth was clamped shut, seemingly in an effort to stop herself giggling. It was as though she was a delinquent sixth-former who'd been sent to the headmaster's office. We were living together within a week.

Until this point I was a committed bachelor. I'd once flirted with the idea of marrying an old girlfriend but decided against it on the grounds that I'd be sacrificing too much. I'd asked myself the following question: "Are you ready to give up hot, monkey sex with a string of drop-dead killer bimbos in order to settle down and get married?" Needless to say, the answer was "no". When you're weighing up the pros and cons of getting married you never think of the alternative as a solitary, miserable existence punctuated by Kentucky Fried Chicken and repeats of Ibiza Uncovered on Sky One. It's always an Austin Powers fantasy in which you're a finger-clicking lothario surrounded by a bevy of mini-skirted lovelies.

But I'd reached that stage in my life when all my illusions about the joys of being single had gone. There's something a bit sad about wanting to sleep with a different woman every night, especially if you've only had about five one-night stands in your life. As a young man I'd always been convinced that I'd live forever; now, for the first time, I felt mortal. The rest of my life stretched before me and the prospect of spending it alone struck me as pretty bleak.

Suddenly, the idea of a wife, even a baby, seemed rather appealing.

I proposed to Caroline on Millennium Eve in a French ski resort. She said no, obviously, but she did suggest that we live together on a threemonth trial basis. I popped the question again on Good Friday, and this time she said she'd think about it. We eventually got married on 21 July 2001. We didn't exactly plan to have a baby - Caroline is about to qualify as a solicitor and I'm a freelance journalist, so we're far from financially secure - but Mother Nature had other ideas. In the blink of an eye, I'd gone from being the oldest swinger in town to an expectant father.

Caroline had said in advance she wanted to avoid having an epidural if she possibly could. Ostensibly, this was because it increases the risk of a Caesarean section, and that, in turn, means a longer recovery period, but the real reason was that she'd been carried away by the macho atmosphere in the antenatal classes. I'd attended these sessions under duress, expecting them to be a bit girly, but it was like being in the locker room at Wembley before a cup final. Virtually the sole topic of conversation was whether or not to have an epidural, and woe betide the woman who said she was considering it. Testosterone, not oestrogen, was coursing through the veins of these expectant mums. Their unacknowledged role model was Rambo in First Blood. If he could stitch up his own leg without an anaesthetic, they could jolly well have a baby without an epidural.

When it came down to it, however, the agony was simply too much to bear. If I had to sum up the expression on Caroline's face, I'd say she looked shocked. She was expecting the contractions to be painful, but not this painful.

Her mood lightened after the epidural. She could tell from the monitor that she was still having contractions, but, mercifully, she could no longer feel them. At 7.45pm the midwife examined Caroline and announced that she could see the baby's head. It was time to start pushing. I was rather dreading this moment - I'm very squeamish - but luckily Caroline had decided in advance that she didn't want me anywhere near her.

"Sit in the corner and don't say anything," she said. "I just want to know that you're there."

"Take a breath, now push," said the midwife. "Harder, harder, harder. Push, push, push, push. That's it. Keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing."

I knew that I was on the threshold of a monumental change. Would I regret giving up my hard-partying lifestyle to become one of those men you see on the Portobello Road with a Peruvian baby sling strapped to their stomachs, following their wives around like trained poodles? Or would I, like all my friends who've had children, think of the next few minutes as the best moments of my life?

It was 9.52am by the time the baby was born. As soon as I heard her cry, I dashed over to take a look. Even though she was covered in gunk, the first thing that struck me was how incredibly beautiful she was. As a bachelor, I'd always scoffed at my friends when they'd told me how cute their babies are, but I was completely smitten. I thought - even allowing for the fact that I'm biased - this baby is an absolute knockout.

I held her in front of me, so her little face was only inches from mine, and then something miraculous happened - at least, it seemed miraculous to me. For the first time in her life, my daughter opened her eyes. I gazed at her and she gazed right back at me. It was an extraordinary moment. "I'm your daddy," I said, smiling uncontrollably. Then I took her over to Caroline: "And this is mummy."

"Oh my God," said Caroline, looking just as shocked as she'd done when I'd first seen her that morning. "She's so beautiful."

Toby Young will be continuing his story of becoming a new dad every week in the Evening Standard.