Dancing On Ice couple Brianne Delcourt and Kevin Kilbane have opened up about their newborn daughter’s arrival into the world.
The pair welcomed Keavy Anne into the world at the end of April via C-section, but the procedure didn’t go exactly to plan.
Speaking exclusively to OK!, Brianne shared how her third caesarean took far longer than her previous procedures and she and her husband ended up with “blood spattered” in their faces.
She explained: “With the other two girls it was a 30-minute procedure and then I could hear a cry, but with Keavy it was way over an hour.
"I had a really bad feeling. My obstetrician kept saying, ‘It’s fine, she just doesn’t want to come out!’
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“And then after an hour and 20 minutes, the doctor was like, ‘You’re going to feel a lot of pressure because we’ve got to get her out now'," Brianne continued.
“And then there was this pop. This is quite gruesome but blood had spattered right in our faces and she came out but then we didn’t hear a thing.”
The 41 year old professional ice skater went on to describe how she was left panicking after not hearing her newborn cry, and sent former footballer Kevin to investigate what was going on.
“I’m panicking at this stage and saying to Kevin, ‘OK, talk to me. What’s going on?’” says Brianne.
“I said to him to just get up and make sure she’s OK, so he got up – and he didn’t tell me this until after – but there were tubes down her throat as she wasn’t breathing properly.
“And then literally five minutes after that I heard the first cry. It was the most emotional…I could still cry now thinking about it.
"Both Kevin and I just started bawling. It was the cutest little cry – and then they brought her over and she was just beautiful.”
Kevin, 45, tells us that he felt “helpless” as he watched his wife go through the ordeal.
He says: “It’s not really been fully explained to us what happened and the unknown is what makes it worse. There were a couple of complications that could have been a lot worse.
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“I was very emotional because I was beside Bri the whole time throughout the surgery and you know what she’s going through. No matter what sort of painkillers or meds she was on, I could just see the uncomfortable faces she’s pulling and it’s just total admiration for her that I feel.”
Former Everton player Kevin – who is a football pundit on Canadian network TSN –also went on to describe his anguish at seeing their daughter struggling.
“It was just awful to see, when you look at a helpless baby lying on the table with an oxygen mask and a tube down her throat to try to clear her throat and her chest,” he says.
Read Brianne and Kevin's full interview – and see all the pictures from their beautiful OK! shoot – here. For more baby exclusives, sign up to OK!'s daily celebrity newsletter.
