Postie's extra special delivery

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http://www.basingstokegazette.co.uk/new ... _delivery/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

POSTMAN Colin Holloway is used to doing early morning deliveries – but he made the most important one of his life when his wife Amy went into labour a week early.

The 30-year-old was stunned when 25-year-old Amy started pushing out their son just four hours after her contractions had begun at 3am on November 4.

With no time to get to the hospital, Colin had no choice but to help Amy with the birth and deliver their first child, Harrison Reece Holloway, into the world.

The drama began when Amy woke with contractions in the night at their home in Penrith Road, Kings Furlong, Basingstoke, and by 5am they were coming quite regularly.

At 6.30am, Colin telephoned the delivery suite at Basingstoke hospital to ask if Amy should come in because her contractions were two minutes apart and lasting 30 seconds. But staff told Amy to have a bath and wait until the contractions were a minute apart.

Amy said: “I was able to breathe through the contractions and I was fine and putting my make-up on.”

An hour later and Colin was back on the phone with a midwife, when he heard Amy scream. He rushed into the bathroom – and saw his baby son’s head coming out.

Thankfully, the Basingstoke postman kept his cool and knew what to do after attending antenatal classes.

He said: “I was rubbing Amy’s back and telling her not to panic, and she gave a big scream and said ‘he’s coming out.’ I looked down and saw his face.

“It was quite emotional but I didn’t have time to savour the moment or panic. I told Amy the hardest part was over.”

Amy said: “I thought: ‘what if something is wrong and he’s stuck?’. My body was pushing but my head was saying this isn’t right. I was trying to fight it.”

But there was little time for fear, because by the next contraction it was all over.

Colin said: “He almost fell out. I caught him and took him in my arms. His right eye was open and saw me first, and he started to cry, and that’s when I knew he was alright.”

Colin was given advice over the phone by paramedics who told him to check his son’s airways to make sure they were clear.

An ambulance arrived six minutes after the birth and the team took mother and baby to hospital, where they stayed for the next four days because Harrison – who weighed in at 5lb 8oz – had jaundice.

Colin said: “I rang my mum and was a bit shaky. I think it was the adrenaline. My mum said: ‘have you got some news’ because she was expecting me to say we were going to hospital, and I said: ‘I have just had to deliver my own son on the bathroom floor.’ “My mum said it’s the best delivery I’ve ever made, and I said: ‘That’s because I’m a first-class dad’.”

Colin added: “When we first called the hospital, what we wanted to hear was them saying: ‘come in and we will have a look’, but they had been busy.

“I’m not bitter about it because I got to experience something that not many people have the chance to, and I delivered my own son.”

But the modest dad did not want to take the limelight away from his wife, and said: “People keep saying I’m a hero but that takes it away from Amy because she’s gone through it all, and all I did was catch my son.”

A statement from Basingstoke hospital said: “Women will often spend the early part of labour at home and then deliver safely in hospital.

“Some babies do arrive very quickly once labour starts, and the midwifery matrons are always available to talk through a couple’s experience of any aspect of maternity care.”