Patrick and Nicole O’Connor had no reason to expect anything other than the birth of their baby girl Jasmine to go smoothly, but 22 hours into the labour it was discovered Jasmine was in a risky position.

Patrick and Nicole, both 27, from Rotherham, were told their daughter’s positioning brought inherent risks to the birth.

It was found late on during a routine examination that Jasmine was 'stargazing', meaning that her face was positioned up instead of down and her head and body were found to be twisted to the side, making a natural birth difficult.

After being transferred to consultant-led care for the birth, Nicole’s contractions had stopped, so doctors aimed to get the contractions going again so they could help turn Jasmine into a suitable position for natural birth.

"I saw my wife and best friend giving it everything she’d got, battling such painful contractions with nothing to show for it."

Unfortunately this wasn’t possible and after an epidural doctors decided it wasn’t safe to use forceps and so Nicole had to have a C-section.

Patrick explained: “The whole ordeal was so traumatic for me – throughout the 26 hours I saw my wife and best friend giving it everything she’d got, battling such painful contractions with nothing to show for it.

“You could see in her eyes how exhausted she was, covered in sweat but not complaining even once, I had to watch this knowing there was nothing I could do to help, all of which makes you feel totally helpless.

“Reality set in fast when I was told to quickly throw on some scrubs, a hairnet and some rather dashing orange crocs – opening the theatre doors for the first time to see the intense array of white lights all of which are focused on your loved one.

Jasmine was immediately transferred to the waiting neonatal intensive care team 

“It felt like an eternity but after a long battle to remove Jasmine, 25 or so minutes later, Jasmine was delivered. Myself and Nicole only heard a distant shout of “baby’s out” from one of the obstetric team and our initial reaction was to listen for her cry but we didn’t hear a peep.

“Jasmine was immediately transferred to the waiting neonatal intensive care team after being alerted to the complications of the delivery. Initially Jasmine came out very shocked and did not cry, so she just needed a helping hand. Luckily Jasmine didn’t need any major intervention, just a little time.

“After another 20 minutes we finally got to hold our little bundle of perfection weighing 7lbs 3oz.

“Twenty minutes without knowing if Jasmine was ok was heart-breaking for both me and my wife. You fight a losing battle against silly thoughts inside your head which aid in you fearing the worst.

“Jasmine is doing absolutely fantastic now, she’s just the most perfect thing we’ve ever set eyes on – we’re slightly biased."

“You always hear people talking about their perfect births so given our age and healthy lifestyles we never though anything out of the ordinary would happen.

“Nicole is a neonatal sister herself and cares for sick and premature babies so you know things like this can happen, but you just never think any of it will happen to you.

“Jasmine is doing absolutely fantastic now, she’s just the most perfect thing we’ve ever set eyes on – we’re slightly biased. She’s feeding great and definitely starting to show a sassy side when she’s hungry.

“From the bottom of my heart I just want to say thank you to each and every member of staff  who was there for my wife and daughter every step of the way. Thank you for your compassion and care.

“It’s because of your care, expertise and the fact you acted so quickly that we now have a beautiful healthy daughter who we absolutely adore.

“The NHS makes me so extremely proud to be British and if I was a millionaire I’d pay for you all to have some well-earned holidays in the sun. But instead I ran a a 10K in scrubs and bright orange crocs.” You can support Patrick by sponsoring him here.

Support the Jessop Wing hospital today