A mum who gave birth in her bedroom with the help of her mother-in-law has told of the ‘petrifying’ but ‘amazing’ experience.

Aimee Parsons, 23, was forced to give birth to her son Thomas at her home in Darwen, while waiting for an ambulance to take her to Burnley General Hospital.

Aimee woke up at 5.30am and began to feel gentle contractions.

She waited an hour or so before waking her partner Nat, 22, and they began to prepare to go to the hospital.

Aimee sat down on the sofa to time her contractions, which were speeding up, while the couple waited for Nat’s mum Michelle to arrive and take care of their two other children, Samuel and Alyssa.

But at around 7.20am, her waters broke.

“I started to panic a bit then,” she says. “I rang Burnley hospital and they advised me to come up as quickly as I could.

“The contractions were non-stop by this point and I said to my partner ‘I really don’t think we’re going to make it to the hospital’.”

Aimee went upstairs to her bedroom and called 999 for an ambulance.

After listening to her breathing, the operator advised her to lie down on the bed and get comfortable.

Michelle, meanwhile, had battled the snowy roads and arrived at the house to find her new grandson almost ready to greet the world.

“At first it was panic stations – we were looking for clean towels and blankets,” says Michelle.

“We got everything organised and I told the operator that I would deliver the baby, following her instructions.

“I was really calm to be honest.

“I just thought, it has to be done – someone’s got to do this.”

Aimee says she had been fighting the instinct to push until the paramedics arrived, but the operator persuaded her that it was time to deliver the baby.

“He wasn’t waiting, he was ready to come out!” she says.

Michelle says: “I could feel the umbilical cord and then all of a sudden his head appeared.

“I kept it together. I was panicking on the inside but I just had to do what I had to do.”

Eager little Thomas was born on January 21 at 8.44 am, weighing 9lbs 1oz, a brother for Samuel, six, and 11-month-old Alyssa.

But for a heart-stopping moment, he didn’t make any noise.

Following the 999 operator’s instructions, Michelle rubbed him vigorously on his back.

“He let out an almighty scream!” Michelle remembers. “It was such a beautiful moment, and one I’ll treasure forever.”

The paramedics were halfway up the stairs to the bedroom when they heard Thomas’s first cry.

They helped a shocked Aimee into the shower and took her and the baby to Burnley hospital to get checked over.

“It was so crazy how fast it came on,” says Aimee. “I was thinking, ‘we’ve got a few hours and hopefully at some point in the afternoon we’ll have a baby’, but it was very quick. I was absolutely petrified.”

Aimee credits Michelle for keeping calm and says she couldn’t have done it without her partner and his mum.

Michelle, meanwhile, found the experience so incredible that she is considering re-training as a midwife.

“I’ll always have a special bond with him,” she says of her grandson. “I can’t wait to tell him all the things I know when he grows up!”

And the drama was more than worth it for Aimee. “Holding all my babies for the first time is the three times I’ve been the happiest in my life,” she says. “It was absolutely amazing, staring at all his perfect little features.”

Thomas is now one month old, and settling in well to family life in the home he was born in.

Aimee says: “He is a proper Darwenian, born and bred!”