By Phil Coleman

Last updated at 08:47, Wednesday, 27 February 2013

Joshua Peter Brookes-Tee may be tiny but he was in a big hurry to be born.

Bruce and Louise Brookes-Tee with Joshua

So much so that his mum Louise, 35, had to be her own midwife, delivering him herself in less than five minutes.

The first-time mum, from Keswick, whose husband Bruce is a Carlisle-based driving instructor, was on the phone to her mum – a qualified nurse – when Joshua arrived.

“I was in shock, and a little scared,” said Louise, who was at the family’s home alone in Main Street, Keswick, when she gave birth.

“There was literally no labour. My waters broke and the next moment I felt my baby’s head.

“I rang Bruce and told him that I was having the baby, and he told me to call my mum straight away.

“I was actually on the phone to her, trying to get on to the bed, when he was born.

“At first, he looked a little grey but then I saw his tummy moving and felt so relieved. By the time my mum arrived, five minutes later, he was crying and was absolutely fine.”

Ever since Joshua’s super-fast birth, on February 6, family and friends have heaped praise on Louise – a cashier at Keswick’s Booth’s supermarket – for coping so well.

She told how there had been no signs whatsoever that her baby, whose birth-weight was 5lbs 15½ oz, might be on the way. Bruce, 39, who runs the Red Driving School in Carlisle, spoke of getting the call from his wife on his video phone.

He said: “I felt very nervous for Louise, because I just couldn’t do anything.

“I felt helpless.

“But she was absolutely brilliant. She’s a natural mother and did amazingly well to cope.

“Luckily, Louise’s mother is a nurse who has done midwifery training, though I don’t suppose she ever expected to help with the birth of her own grandchild.

“Louise first rang me at 10.45am. So I told her that she had better call her mum, and in the one or two minutes it took her to get from the bathroom to the bedroom and make that call Joshua was born.”

Bruce had just finished giving a pupil a driving less and was parked opposite the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle when he got his wife’s call. He waited while mother and child were brought to the hospital for a check up. “It was the longest 25 minutes of my life,” said Bruce.

The couple met in 1999 and married in May 2009.

First published at 08:39, Wednesday, 27 February 2013
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk