‘I want to be a maths teacher - not a midwife!’
Forget Call The Midwife, it was more a case of ‘Call my teenage son’ when heavily pregnant Arriana Shell found herself in labour on her kitchen floor. It was Arriana’s third child, and experience told her this baby was coming – NOW! The mum, from Stamford, Lincolnshire, was alone in the house apart from her teenage son, Tyler, aged 13. He was getting ready for school when he heard his mum’s frantic yells for help. Instead of panicking, Tyler calmly rolled up the sleeves of his school blazer and, with Mum’s instructions, delivered his baby brother, Jacob – right there on the kitchen floor! Passing the baby to his mum, Tyler laughed when Jacob let out a loud cry. ‘He’s letting us know he’s here, Mum,’ he said. When help, in the form of dad, Gareth, and an ambulance, arrived at their home, both Arriana and her 5lb 13oz new baby were doing fine!
And Tyler? ‘He was offered the day off school,’ says Arriana, 35. ‘But he was keen to get there, I think he’d had enough baby talk for one day.’
Despite his unscheduled arrival on 14 March this year, plus a spot of jaundice, baby Jacob was thriving when he eventually got to hospital.
When Tyler arrived to visit his brother after school, the midwives joked, ‘Do you fancy a job?’
But Tyler, who lists his hobbies as footie, riding his bike and hanging out with his mates, has other ideas for his future.
‘I want to be a maths teacher,’ he explains.
Arriana says Jacob, who’s now seven months old, is doing well.
‘Tyler was so calm and coolheaded. I dread to think what would have happened if he hadn’t been there and I’d had to give birth on my own.
‘He’s my hero, and his little brother thinks he’s pretty fabulous, too.’
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