Matt and Sarah met twelve years ago, at a bus stop in Leamington Spa, and they have been together ever since. “We were both waiting for the same bus back to Warwick University campus and we had an hour to wait. We got talking and discovered that we were both reading Maths and that we had a lot in common.”

After university, Matt moved back to Hampshire and Sarah followed. In 2007 the couple were married, and two years later, after eleven years together, they decided that the time was right to start a family. “We’re never ones to rush into anything!” Laughs Sarah.

When she first found out that she was pregnant Sarah managed to keep the news to herself for an entire week. “Matt was in Lithuania with work. I was so excited, but I wanted to tell him face to face, so I knew for a week without telling anyone. Then when he came home I took another test and showed it to him. It was all planned, so he wasn’t surprised, but he was a little in awe of the reality of it.”

Sarah had no major problems during her pregnancy, though she did find it difficult to hide her morning sickness at the sixth form college where she now works as a maths teacher. “I had to pretend to go and get more calculators for the students while I ran to the loo!”

Sarah had initially imagined herself having a hospital birth, but after a friend recommended that she consider hypnobirthing she changed her mind. “I looked into it, and read Marie Mongen’s book about hypnobirthing. It talks about birthing without fear, and I realised that was the type of birth I wanted.”

After deciding to go down the hypnobirthing route, Sarah went to weekly yoga classes and she and Matt attended hypnobirthing sessions at Andover Birth Centre, where they were also booked in for the birth. “I felt completely ready to give birth,” says Sarah, “and I was very excited about meeting the baby.”

However, two weeks before Sarah’s due date, their plans were thrown off course. “We received a letter to say that the birth centre was closing and that we needed to make alternative arrangements.” Matt and Sarah discussed going to hospital, but decided instead to opt for a home birth. “The midwives were supportive, and they dropped off a home birth kit the day before I went into labour.”

At 9.30pm on Sunday 26th September Sarah’s waters broke. “I called the hospital to let them know, and they told me to go to bed and get some sleep. But half an hour later I was having three contractions every ten minutes. It was very intense and I was concerned that if this was early labour then I was going to need pain relief!”

Matt called the hospital again and asked them to send a midwife. “I think she was expecting to find that we were being overly cautious and to able to send me to bed with painkillers but when she arrived at 11pm I was already 5cm dilated. She called for another midwife to come out, at which point I asked if the other midwife was bringing the gas and air – it turned out the first midwife had some but didn’t offer it as I was doing so well without it!”

“I’d been using the hypnobirthing breathing techniques and listening to my CD while Matt massaged my back and helped me to relax. I had an hour of gas and air while we waited for the other midwife, and then it was time to push. The midwives and Matt were incredibly supportive, both emotionally and physically, and in the end I gave birth squatting, with Matt holding me up while he sat on the sofa.”

“I had immediate skin to skin contact with Laura, and I had such an intense feeling of love that it made me cry. Because the labour was only 4½ hours, I was shaking from the shock, and I wasn’t sure if the baby was a boy or girl. They confirmed that she was a girl, which was lucky because we hadn’t talked about boys’ names.”

Despite the fact that she had just given birth, Sarah’s maths skills were then unexpectedly called upon. “The scales were only in kilos so the midwife asked me, as I’m a maths teacher, if I could convert Laura’s weight to pounds and ounces. Groggily, I managed it!”

By the time the midwives left at 4am, the new family were tucked up in bed. “We slept through until 8am, and then started calling people to let them know. During the first few days Laura and I mainly slept, and we had lots of visitors who brought round food. The aftercare from the midwives was amazing – a midwife came back out the same day and every few days after that to check on us and help with breastfeeding, which fortunately Laura really took to.”

A few months on, and Sarah is relishing her new role as a mother. “We’re hectically busy – going to different mother and baby groups each day. Laura has started to laugh and chatter, and I’m savouring every moment as it comes.”