A mother who unexpectedly gave birth in less than a minute has described the moment her baby emerged as her husband looked for a space in the hospital car park.
Jessica Stubbins, from Scunthorpe, had just walked through the first set of doors when she felt a twinge and her daughter Lucy arrived – a moment caught on camera thanks to the hospital’s CCTV.
Her husband Tom, a butcher, told Good Morning Britain how Jessica exclaimed: ‘It’s a girl, it’s a girl! I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’
He recalled: ‘She felt really guilty because I missed it. I was just in absolute shock and I didn’t know what was happening.’
The pair appeared on the ITV show this morning with Lucy and her big sister Penny, where Jessica told host Ben Shephard: ‘I just told Tom he best drop me off at the door as he parked the car.
‘And then I was trying to close the door really quick and then as I got out I just knew that she was on the way.’
Her husband, who had not seen the footage before, joked: ‘It was only about a hundred feet away and I still missed it.’
Kate Garraway, who said she was flabbergasted by the footage, remarked: ‘You didn’t even sit down! This is what I can’t understand; you’re just so casual about it.’
Jessica, who works as an assistant manager at Card Factory, laughed: ‘She was just coming. There was no stopping her, there was no time to sit down.’
At that point, nurses arrived and wrapped Lucy in a hoodie before taking the family inside.
Jessica, who had already visited Scunthorpe General Hospital earlier that day, said she had realised her baby was on the way just after midnight.
One nurse, Gemma Hoeft, recalled how she had seen Jessica struggling in the hospital entrance. ‘I thought, That girl’s not going to make it’, she said.
‘But by the time I made it Jessica was still stooped over but when I looked she had little Lucy in her arms.’
Ben told the couple: ‘I hope you got the money back on the parking ticket!’
