One Born Every Minute

Two very different approaches to childbirth in tonight’s ‘One Born Every Minute’. Olga Kozlova doesn’t want her husband anywhere near her during labour whereas Vicky Thompson keeps her man close at hand. Olga (30) and Victor (37) are from Lithuania. She is glamorous and, even in labour, applies more make-up than many woman do on a Saturday night out! Her chosen birth partner is worried mum, Galina, who says her daughter is ‘a child, giving birth to a child’. Olga met husband Victor met through an internet dating site back home but now the couple live in Leeds. They have found a new homeland but are lost in translation. Neither Russian-speaking Olga nor mum understand English. Victor does but he’s been banished from the delivery room – he’s sent packing whenever he pokes his head around the door. This is a big problem because Olga refused to have an interpreter and therefore has almost no idea what the midwives are saying. Her mother’s Russian/English dictionary isn’t much help. By contrast, Vicky Thompson (25) met her partner Ben (25) in the nightclub where they both worked. He was a bouncer and she was a barmaid. It was love at first sight and she had his name tattooed on her wrist after two months of them being together (or… although it was love at first sight, it’s taken him three years to finish having her name tattooed on his back because it hurt so much!) They are both bubbly, chatty and seem to love being together. Tattoos are their common language. They use them to celebrate their love and commemorate the loss associated with an earlier miscarriage. If they have more children, the only worry is that Ben will run out of space for more tattoos on his torso.