She is perfect
BABY JOY FOR THE ‘BACKPACKING BRIDGET JONES’
THE ‘backpacking Bridget Jones’ who found her happy-ever-after having been being jilted just weeks before her wedding today shared adorable photos and video of her baby daughter.
Kenilworth blogger Katy Colins, 32, quit her job, sold her belongings and booked a one-way ticket thousands of miles away after her £25,000 wedding was called off by university sweetheart Thom Soutter almost five years ago.
Katy became Britain’s most famous jilted bride when the story of her cancelled nuptials and subsequent solo travels around the world made headlines, and then secured a five-book deal for her series of bestselling novels inspired by her time overseas.
And in a wonderful twist of fate, she fell in love with the journalist who first wrote about her exploits.
She married former Liverpool ECHO journalist John Siddle, 31 – now Head of Audience at the Coventry Telegraph – in a low-key ceremony in the city in January and then revealed that the couple were expected a baby in the late spring.
Katy, a former PR worker at Manchester Airport, has now shared the first pictures of the couple’s sevenweek-old daughter, Everleigh Gray Siddle.
Sharing the proud news on her blog, NotWedOrDead: “From that very first solo travel trip as a brokenhearted backpacker leaving the comfort of her world for the total unknown, no-one could have predicted the twists and turns of how the next four-and-a-half years would pan out.
“Back then I was brave (some may say foolish) to leave all I knew to see the world with a limited budget, non-existent solo travel experience and dealing with the emotions of what would become a very public breakup – but I am so glad I took that bold step.
“Thanks to sheer determination, a little bit of luck and some hard work I kept pushing forward.
“From being jobless, single and skint I was able to share how I survived that first trip, made a life in France, continued to see the world (now ticking off 40 countries), my dreams coming true as I became a published author, got to give you guys a peek into my wedding and even reveal I was pregnant on these very pages. “Right now I am beyond excited that I get to share some other news with you. I can show off this little lump of loveliness who has changed my world forever. My daughter, Everleigh Gray.” Katy and Thom had met as students at Salford University, where John also studied, and set up home after graduating. But three months before they were due to marry in May 2012 he dropped his bombshell that after nine years together, he couldn’t go through with the wedding and was seeing another woman. Katy travelled around the world before a relationship developed with John, then a journalist at the Liverpool ECHO. A world away from the planned wedding with Thom, the couple took their vows in front of just 44 guests at a register office and Katy wore a £200 high street dress. There were no bridesmaids and the reception was at a local pub. Katy revealed in her blog how she gave birth at the couple’s home in Kenilworth on May 31. She said: “The birth went better than I could have ever hoped for.
“Fairy lights were strung on my packed bookcases, relaxing zen music was playing and incense was burning, it was all ridiculously chilled out.
“It was also a super speedy labour as my contractions intensified very quickly. One moment I was chatting to my mum on the phone telling her that despite things starting I thought it could still be ages, to just 15 minutes later dropping to my knees gripping the radiator in the downstairs loo feeling like I could push!
“The shock of how fast I felt I was losing control was probably the scariest thing. Breathe in calm and breathe out tension ran through my mind like an incessant affirmation. I had to force myself to just focus on my breathing especially as this was my only pain relief thanks to the failed application of the TENS machine.
“The midwife arrived in a whirlwind not expecting to see me so far in active labour and half-hoisted me out of the small bathroom to examine me. Amazingly just six hours after my first contraction I was 10cm and ready to push!
“She barely had time to call the back up midwife, get her kit ready, gloves on and fix the canister of gas and air before I was on my knees in the lovely warm birth pool pushing. When they say your body takes over it totally does. There was no way I could hold back. I let it do its thing as if my mind and body were two separate entities.
“At 10.24am Everleigh Gray Siddle was born in the pool (still in her amniotic sac that the midwife hurriedly had to break) just 30 minutes after the midwife arrived. “She is perfect. “No stitches, no medical interventions and no fuss. The house was back to normal, hot buttery toast in hand and champagne popped open less than an hour later.
Katy has vowed that Everleigh will see the world, and she is already planning a trip to New Zealand. And she spoke of adapting to motherhood – a challenge she never thought she’d see.
Katy wrote: “The weeks have whizzed by and with every day that passes I feel more confident, more in control and more in love.
“Welcome to the world Everleigh. No one, especially not me, could have predicted how you came to being in my life but I am so bloody grateful that you are.
“I promise to show you the world and can’t wait to start this new adventure with you and your daddy by my side.”
Katy Colins’ new book, Chasing the Sun, is released on Thursday, July 27.
Katy’s latest novel, the fourth instalment of the Lonely Hearts Travel Club, ‘Chasing The Sun,’ is out on Thursday, July 27. It is based on her travels in Australia with protagonist Georgia Green only a Tiffany box away from her happily ever after.
Chasing The Sun can be preordered on Amazon and found in all good bookshops.
Fairy lights were strung on my packed bookcases, relaxing zen music was playing and incense was burning, it was all ridiculously chilled out. Katy Colins