ZaraandMike Tindall’s third child arrived on his own terms.
Lucas Philip Tindall, the third child of Zara and Mike, celebrated his second birthday on March 21. But the member of the British royal family — he’sPrincess Anne’s fifth grandchild and a great-grandson of the lateQueen Elizabeth— has abirth storythat won’t soon be forgotten.
Mike explained that “fortunately,” Zara’s friend, Dolly Maude, was with them “and recognized that we wouldn’t have got to hospital in time.”
Laughing as he continued to recall the dramatic experience, Mike added: “Fortunately, the midwife, who was going to meet us at the hospital wasn’t that far away, so she drove up, got there just as we’d assumed the pos-ish [as he called the position]. And then the second midwife arrived just after the head had arrived.”
Lucas Tindall, Zara Tindall and Mike Tindall.Joe Giddens/PA Images via Getty Images
Miketold the wild story againwhile competing on the U.K. reality showI’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!last year.
“As we got our stuff to go to hospital, she got out of the bath, she could barely stand, she was shaking,” the athlete recalled on the show, according toSky News. “The midwife was like, ‘She’s not making the hospital.’ She was like, ‘You don’t want to be delivering in the car.’ [I went] into the gym [and got] two gym mats [to put] down in the bathroom.”
Mike added that Zara’s labor pains were intense: “She almost choked me to death. You can’t say anything, can you? ‘Can you let go, you’re really hurting me?’ "
Mike Tindall and Lucas Tindall.Joe Giddens/PA Images via Getty Images
While Zara is the firstmodernroyal to have a home birth — albeit an unexpected one! — she’s not the first in the family. In fact, most royal births took place at home until the 1970s, when Zara’s mother Princess Anne opted to welcome her first child, son Peter Phillips, in the Lindo Wing of St. Mary’s Hospital in London. When Anne gave birth to Zara, she returned to the same hospital.
Royal mothers over the past four decades — like Sarah Ferguson, Sophie, the Duchess of Edinburgh andMeghan Markle— have all given birth at hospitals.
However,things were differentjust a generation earlier. All ofQueen Elizabeth’s four children were born at home.King Charles, Prince Andrew and Prince Edward were delivered at Buckingham Palace, while Princess Anne was born at Clarence House while the palace was undergoing renovations.
The late Queen’s sister, Princess Margaret, also welcomed her two children at home. Her son, David-Armstrong Jones, was born at Clarence House and her daughter, Lady Sarah Chatto, was welcomed at Kensington Palace.
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Lucas is already joining his family — including big sisters Mia, 9, and Lena, 4 — at outings such as his mom’s horse-riding competitions. After all, Zara earned a silver medal at the 2012 Olympics.
source: people.com
