One Born Every Minute

This week an older mum and a teen mum approach childbirth in very different ways. Hayley decides laughter is the best medicine and jokingly refers to herself as a ‘geriatric mum’ at 37, while teenager Kaycey, is determined to have a natural birth, and screams with the pain. When first admitted Kaycey (17) is in very early labour “admitting a fingertip and screaming the house down” as midwife Amy Bisson puts it. She adds that “midwifery is challenging anyway, but teenagers just add a little edge to that.” Kaycey’s partner David (21) says that Kaycey is vocal at the best of times and will be a “screaming” in labour or, as his mum puts it, “hell in the delivery room.” Kaycey and David are now looking forward to the birth of their son, but they had a rocky road to start. After having a casual relationship for just a month, they parted ways. Then Kaycey found out she was pregnant – but David felt they weren’t ready for a baby and that they couldn’t manage it financially. Kaycey knew all along that she wanted to have the baby and now nine months on, David is willingly at her side waiting for his son to be born. He declares that he “wants to cut the umbilical cord and set him free – after all, he’s been stuck with her for nine months!” Meanwhile John (40) says that the moment he met Hayley (37) he knew he’d found his soul mate. Hayley agrees that it’s been like a fairytale since she met John. In a short amount of time she’s gone from thinking she’d always be on her own, to becoming a step-mother to John’s two children and now to having a baby of her own. In the delivery room Hayley is bubbly and funny, cracking jokes between contractions. In fact, she’s on such good form that her midwife says: “You do realise you’ll be lulling loads of women into a false sense of security? You’re six centimetres and look how happy you are!”