We’ve come to expect a certain level of pageantry when royal babies are born—picture Prince William and Kate, with a fresh blowout, emerging on the steps of the Lindo Wing with a little bundle in tow and posing for photos published around the world. But not all royal babies make this kind of entrance, especially the Queen’s tenth great-grandchild, Lucas Philip Tindall!
Equestrian Zara Tindall, whose mom is Princess Anne, welcomed her new addition in much the same way as a lot of third-timers: fast and furious. The 8lb 4oz baby boy came barrelling into the world on the bathroom floor, according to his dad, former rugby star Mike Tindall.
“Sunday got even better because a little baby boy arrived at my house,” he said on his podcast, The Good, The Bad & The Rugby. “Arrived very quickly. Didn’t make it to hospital. On the bathroom floor. So yeah, it was running to the gym, get a mat, get into the bathroom, get the mat on the floor, towels down, brace, brace, brace.”
Mike didn’t have to put his rugby skills to use and catch the baby. “Fortunately, the midwife who was going to meet us at the hospital wasn’t that far away, so she drove up just as we had assumed the posit [position] and the second midwife arrived just after the head had arrived.”
Crazy 6 nations weekend but the tournament lives for another week. It was also followed by a super Sunday! #goodtimeshttps://t.co/HYuu65RXM1https://t.co/9k0stAM7DF pic.twitter.com/3onbzFbJqn
— mike tindall (@miketindall13) March 24, 2021
The story is so sweet and relatable, and we can picture a frenzied Mike running around trying to grab supplies for an unplanned home birth. At least this wasn’t his first baby, so he had an idea of what was to come.
The Queen’s eldest granddaughter and her husband already have two little girls, seven-year-old Mia and two-year-old Lena, but they weren’t around for the birth. “Zed [his nickname for Zara] had contractions through the night — she hadn’t slept well the night before so we had someone take the kids for the day.”
Aside from his sisters, who Mike says are thrilled to have a new baby sibling, Lucas has a built-in playmate with his cousin August, Princess Eugenie’s one-month-old son. Mia, Lena and Lucas, who are all in the line of succession to the throne, don’t have royal titles, and neither does their mom—Princess Anne refused the offer when her kids were born, hoping to give them more normal lives.
Like so many of us, including their cousins Prince Harry and Meghan, Zara and Mike’s road to three kids hasn’t been without its heartbreaks. They’ve been open about suffering miscarriages in the past. “You need to go through a period where you don’t talk about it because it’s too raw but, as with everything, time’s a great healer,” she told the Sunday Times in 2018.
Now they’ll be spending time getting used to the hectic life of a family of five.
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