After SIX GIRLS, meet the most longed for baby boy in Britain: Mother's happiness as baby George completes her family following years of yearning

Maxine Irving had six daughters before she gave birth to son George



George joins sisters Olivia, Alicia, Isabella, Lucia, Helena and Tallula

Maxine and husband Jamie had always wanted a 'little bundle of blue'

The family, who live in Timperley, Greater Manchester, is now complete



Tripping over four pairs of glittery pumps in the downstairs hall, I stumbled into our playroom only to be greeted by squealing laughter and an overpowering waft of nail polish.

Tiny toes were being painted a kaleidoscope of colours and lashings of lip gloss indelicately sloshed onto sticky pint-sized pouts as three of my daughters immersed themselves in playing ‘beauty salon’.

Upstairs I could hear the roar of a hair dryer competing against a One Direction CD, while back in the playroom, my six-year-old Helena was ordering the customers of her toy sweetshop not to touch the little lollipops on the plastic shelf without ‘paying’ first.

A brother at last: Mother Maxine holds baby George surrounded by her six delighted daughters, from left to right, Lucia, 7, Tallulah, 3, Olivia, 19, Alicia, 14, Helena, 6, and eight-year-old Isabella

Chaos? Yes. But for me, nothing out of the ordinary. For years, my house has been girls world central. With six daughters, it’s a place where bedrooms are a blizzard of fairies and Barbies and the bathroom is crammed with scented soaps and sparkly hair bobbles.

But suddenly, in the middle of this explosion of femininity, I catch a glimpse of powder blue. My gorgeous, chunky baby boy. George. My precious longed-for son — a baby boy born after six girls.

My son. I still can’t believe I can say these words. I never really thought it would happen. I pinch myself every morning when I scoop him from his cot and gaze at his little boyish face. I thought we only did girls. Girls who came one after another, all gorgeous and much loved, but none of them, well, boys.

I admit now I was prepared to keep going until we had a son. And if it meant we ended up with a houseful of girls, which we did, well, that was absolutely fine.

It’s not that I haven’t adored having daughters — I love all the girly shopping and baking, the softness and companionship. But as one arrived after another, part of me felt a deep, desperate yearning for a boy, fuelled in part by the fact that my husband Jamie didn’t have a son — someone he could kick a ball with in the park, go to the match with, pass on the family name to.

Whenever friends who had boys would say they were taking their sons on, say, a ‘lads and dads’ camping weekend I felt —what? — envy, sadness, longing.



I desperately wanted a boy and my husband Jamie longed for someone he could call ‘my son’.



But as baby girl followed baby girl, it seemed that having a son was a mere dream. That is, until September 4 last year, when the world turned blue and we were finally able to use the boy’s name —George — we’d chosen so long ago.



Adored: Maxine said that she had desperately wanted a boy, and her husband Jamie had longed for someone he could call his son

Every time I fell pregnant, the name had been there, ready to use if the baby was a boy. And each time it was quietly set aside as we welcomed another gorgeous little girl into our home. How long would we have to keep going until we could use it?

And there’s no question that our girls — Olivia, 19, Alicia, 14, Isabella, 8, Lucia, 7, Helena, 6 and Tallula, 3 — are gorgeous. They each have the perfect mix of my half-Jamaican background and their father’s blue-eyed blond genes.

But we ached for what seemed to elude us. It wasn’t helped by the increasingly ‘disappointed’ reaction of friends, family and people we knew.

It’s amazing how people just say things without thinking. We stopped getting ‘Congratulations!’ and started to get ‘Oh, not another girl!’

You’d think something terrible had happened. It hadn’t, but in truth every new arrival only served as a reminder of what we didn’t have and what we so desperately wanted.

And how I would have to keep going if I was ever going to be in with a chance of having a son.

When Jamie and I married after meeting through friends, we always knew we wanted to have at least four children. At the time, I was working in retail management but gave up work after having the first two girls to be a full-time mum.

At first, having girls was a novelty since Jamie, a highway maintenance manager, is one of three boys and I have three older brothers (and no sisters).

But by the time Lucia — our fourth girl — arrived, we really started to wonder whether we were ever going to have a boy.

After each girl, we’d tell ourselves that was it, that our family was complete. But then, well, I love babies, and we’d give it another try. And I was quite young — I’m 37 — I just thought, we’ll keep going until we get one.

I never found it difficult to conceive and when I fell pregnant with George, I didn’t feel any differently to how I did in my other pregnancies. I seemed to carry my bump the same way too and didn’t have particularly bad morning sickness.

Surprise: Maxine had always found out the sex of her other babies at the 20-week scan. But for some reason, with George she decided not to

We’d always found out the sex of all our other babies at the 20-week scan. But for some reason, with George I decided not to.

As Jamie said, it was bound to be a girl, so what was the point?

Meanwhile, as the birth drew closer, I began neatly pressing the pink Babygros stowed away from previous pregnancies as we steeled ourselves for another little girl. I went into labour on the first day of the autumn term last year.

We rushed the children off to school then raced to Wythenshawe Hospital in Manchester where 20 minutes later and with only a few gusts of gas and air, our 8lb 2oz baby came bouncing into the world.

We’d told the midwife we wanted to see for ourselves what the baby would be rather than her telling us, so as soon as George came out she just held him up to us.

We were speechless. All we could both keep saying, over and over again was: ‘Oh my god, a boy!’ We’d done it! As she wheeled us back to the ward, the midwife stopped everyone she met in the corridor, proudly announcing that this baby boy had been born after six girls.

I stayed in hospital for only six hours. It had been an easy birth and I wanted to get home so that George could meet his big sisters. Their reaction was electric as they clamoured round him, squealing with delight. They couldn’t believe it. They kept saying: ‘We’ve got a little brother.’ They were as shocked as we were.

Nothing prepared me for the reaction from friends and family. Our five-bedroom semi in Timperley, Greater Manchester, was transformed into a sea of blue — from sprawling flower arrangements and baby presents to the huge balloons heralding the arrival of our own little prince.

Having this little bundle of blue among our brood was just incredible. The girls couldn’t stop fussing over him. And Jamie and I would just sit there looking at him.

As a tiny baby, apart from the blizzard of blue that had invaded our house, things weren’t that different. (Well, apart from nappy changes — I wasn’t prepared for the projectile wee which goes everywhere as soon as the nappy comes off.) George had no choice but to fit in with our girly household.

With so many children, we do our best to make sure order and routine prevail — from sitting down round the table to have dinner together at night, to homework, and systematic bed times. George was simply timetabled into this.

But as he gets bigger, I’m really beginning to feel the ‘boyish’ impact he makes. For a start, I’m used to girly appetites.

Happy family: With so many children, Maxine does her best to make sure order and routine prevail ¿ from sitting down round the table to have dinner together at night, to homework, and systematic bed times

Then, the other day, the family sat down to their Sunday dinner only to watch in awe as George reached out for one roast potato after another.

The toys are changing too. We’re buying football nets for the garden and George now has his first train set — though he seems just as happy playing with the girls’ dolls! We’re also going to put up a blue play house in the garden to sit alongside the pink one.

Jamie loves tumbling about with him — the girls always seemed too delicate for that. And as he does so, he keeps calling George ‘my boy’ or ‘my son’.

I love shopping for his clothes, from tiny jeans to crisp shirts: in fact I’ve already bought him a smart shirt and tie for Christmas Day. After years of careful bulk buying frocks or passing down clothes for the girls, it’s such fun to pick out outfits for my son.

Everyone keeps asking if I’m calling it a day now on the baby front. Well, I do feel fit and healthy — I jog a few miles a couple of times a week to keep in shape — so in theory I could carry on. And Jamie has joked that he’d like a little brother for George.

But while that would be nice, we have learned over the years that there are no guarantees.

In fact there’s a lady I know on the school run who has just had her seventh boy. I don’t think I could have done that. It’s easy to keep going when you’ve got lots of girly girls, but I think the prospect of a houseful of noisy, messy boys might have been more of a challenge.