Bridesmaid hides labour pains at sister’s wedding

Heavily pregnant but determined not to miss the wedding, Lucy grinned through the painful contractions as she took part in her sister Emma Rotherham’s ceremony, posed for pictures and even made it through most of the reception.

It was only when the contractions became too much to handle that she finally let on what had been happening all day and was rushed to hospital where she gave birth to a baby girl.

Brave Lucy, 29, said: “I wanted to watch my sister say ‘I do’ and didn’t want to steal the limelight by giving birth.

“My due date was a week before the wedding so we always knew it was going to be close but I never imagined I’d go into labour while walking down the aisle.

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“I don’t know how I made it through the ceremony, I was in agony.”

The ceremony was held in front of 100 guests at Sacred Heart Church in Doncaster and the reception was at Wandsworth Hotel at the Holiday Inn.

Lucy added: “Baby Izzy nearly upstaged the bride, but I had made a promise to my sister that I’d be there no matter what.”

Primary school teacher Lucy and her husband David, 29, from Bradford, Yorkshire, found out she was three weeks pregnant in August last year and her due date was April 19 this year – just one week before 26-year-old Emma’s big day.

“We joked about how we were cutting it a bit fine but we foolishly thought everything would be fine,” said Lucy.

“As it got closer to Emma’s wedding, the panic started to set in.

“She’d had to order me a maternity bridesmaid dress and because I was chief bridesmaid, I didn’t want to be waddling down the aisle with my bump.”

As the wedding day approached she tried every trick in the book to make her baby come quicker – but the hot curries and acupuncture didn’t work.

Her due date came and went and on the morning of her sister’s wedding, Lucy was woken up at 2am by painful contractions – a week overdue.

She said: “I could not believe how bad the timing was but I was willing to put on a brave face so my sister’s big day wasn’t ruined.

“I was in such agony, I just kept praying my waters wouldn’t break before they exchanged their vows.”

Brave Lucy managed to hold on until after the ceremony, and even posed for pictures outside the church with Emma and her husband Dan Bowker, 27.

She said: “I was halfway through my first mouthful of food at the reception when the contractions got deeper and longer.

“I was struggling to breathe and thought my waters were going to break.”

Her mother drover her to Doncaster Royal Infirmary and Izzy – now nine weeks old – was born 13 hours later on April 27 after a long and drawn-out labour.

Bride Emma, a hotel team leader, said: “This was only ever going to be a double celebration not something that would be taking shine away from the wedding.”

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