“Excuse me, are you Tasha and Jonny?” 

“Erm, yes.” 

“great, let me just give you your microphones - please wear these at all times...”

This conversation is not the one usually had by heavily pregnant ladies and their partners when they arrive at the hospital to deliver a baby. I don’t think its normal to have selected what you will wear that day based on hiding your beer belly or looking cool. Usually, the birthing situation is pretty informal. Usually you’re preoccupied with having a baby and nothing else really matters, but usually your not having the baby on national television. 

The popular show ‘One Born Every Minute’ has twice been recorded at Liverpool Women's Hospital. They film consenting couples as they come into the hospital in labour, they show the progression of the labour, the awkward exchanges, the even more awkward mothers in law and then the big finale is the birth; in all its gory glory. 

We weren’t surprised that we got asked to go on the show; they ask everyone - what was surprising was that we said ‘yes’!

OK, we need to get this straight; we were having a C-section. That is important to know so if you ever watch the show and see us you won’t see; you know... You will just see an operation. 

The big question that we asked ourselves when we were walking into the hospital wearing microphones and being followed by cameras mounted to the wall was; “why did we say yes to this!?” Seriously - what a crazy thing to do! Didn’t we think we had enough on our plate?

Did we want to have our ‘fifth-teen minutes”? No, that's not it. Did we want to have an incredibly embarrassing video to show Josiah's future love interests? Well yes, but that is just a happy by-product. Why did we say yes to this madness?! Well, the reasons why is pretty simple. It’s an interesting experience. 

We don’t want our children's lives to be lacking in experience. We want their childhoods to be rich with opportunities, we want to travel as a family, we want them to have fun, we want them to be cultured, we want them to have excitement, we want them to take risks.  We are firm believers in living life in all abundance. 

By saying yes to the One Born experience, in some ways we planted our flag for Josiah. We were encouraging him to say yes, to take steps of faith, to do things without knowing the outcome, to jump first and fear later... 

I think that saying yes to One Born was a good way of showing our kids that its good to take that step... I hope that being on One Born isn’t where our adventures end and now we become ‘sensible’. I hope that our kids know that the sky isn’t necessarily the limit ever; because they could try to become astronauts if they want. 

Yeah, they will graze their knees sometimes, they will fail, they will not be able to succeed at everything. We want them to learn to fail well. We want them to learn that they are not defined by their losses or their wins. It is the taking part that counts.

So was One Born a good experience... Yeah, it was. Ok, what’s next?

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Jonny describes himself as: Christian / Husband / Dad / Youth Pastor / Trainee Church Planter / Liverpool Fan / Dreamer

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