One Born Every Minute

Charlotte Hoskins (26) is one of the maternity hospital’s very own midwives and she’s having her first baby. There’s excitement on the labour ward and her colleagues give her the red carpet treatment. Everyone wants the birth to go smoothly. Charlotte and husband James (29) have been together for nine years but they only married a year ago and she fell pregnant quickly. She’s very passionate about her job and wants her own birth experience to help her care more sensitively for women in childbirth. She’s planning to have a water birth because she feels they are so calm and natural. If not she wants a midwife led birth with as little intervention as possible. But even midwives have to follow the laws of nature. When she can’t have a water birth her plans come unstuck and she’s in for a more complicated labour. Julie Reid (35) is 10 years older than her partner Nick and she has two children from a previous relationship. Unsurprisingly she’s the one in the driving seat and says having a relationship with Nick is a bit like having another child. She didn’t want more children herself, but agreed to have just one more because Nick kept pestering her for a child of their own. Then she discovered she was expecting twins, which is not what she bargained for. Julie’s a real trooper and wants to have her twins naturally, although complications with multiple births can all too easily arise.