'OUR FAMILY'S COMPLETE WE COULDN'T BE HAPPIER'

Following a “whirlwind” time, Alex and Olivia Bowen invite us into their home to meet their beautiful baby daughter, Siena

- MITYA UNDERWOOD

Alex and Olivia Bowen can’t wipe the smiles off their faces as they introduce six-week-old daughter Siena Grace — and declare their family of four “complete”.

The couple are besotted by their new addition, a sister for three-year-old Abel, and as they invite us into their home for the first exclusive interview since her birth, they are refreshingly honest.

Siena arrived just after midnight on 14 August, weighing a healthy 7lb 12oz. But mum Olivia suffered a serious haemorrhage and says she remembers literally forcing herself to stay awake and fight for her life.

“It's been a whirlwind,” 31-year-old Olivia smiles, as Siena dozes in her arms. “We've had time to process what happened, and I'm at peace with it. I wanted a homebirth but I didn’t get one!”

Siena’s birth followed a difficult pregnancy - after learning they were expecting twins, the couple discovered at an early scan that, sadly, they had lost one of the babies due to what's known as “vanishing twin syndrome”. So it was an anxious pregnancy full of mixed emotions. But after a difficult forceps labour with Abel, Olivia was determined to rewrite her birth story and have a positive delivery with Siena.

However, labour at the couple’s Essex home didn’t progress as planned and Olivia was forced to go to hospital for an emergency Caesarean section.

“I was lying on the operating table with no idea what was happening,” she tells us, softly. “Then I remember Siena was pulled out and she was absolutely fine and crying, which is exactly what you want to hear.

“Then it just went so quiet, and there was a lot going on that I couldn’t see. Alex and I both thought the worst. I heard a siren and the words, ‘severe haemorrhage’.