AFTER rushing to hospital during the roadworks chaos, expectant mother Rebecca Pyrah joked with hospital staff that she would not have a roadside birth.

Less than 12 hours later she gave birth to a perfectly healthy eight-pound baby boy in the back seat of the family car just two minutes from their house in Chorefields, Kidlington.

The 33-year-old, four days overdue with her second child, was so concerned about being stranded on Oxfordshire’s roads that she went to the John Radcliffe Hospital at 6.30am with her husband John last Tuesday, the second day of the roadworks.

After being sent home, the teacher ended up giving birth unaided in the back of the couple’s Volkswagen Golf at 5.15pm.

Her husband John only pulled over once he heard his new son Sebastian crying for the first time.

The teacher said: “I had had contractions all night on Monday and I was really anxious about the roadworks at Wolvercote and Cutteslowe roundabouts.

“It was the first day of them and we didn’t know how bad it would be and I just wanted to get to the hospital.”

She said staff at the John Radcliffe told her that her son wouldn’t be arriving anytime soon and sent her home.

The couple were advised that if a roadside birth was imminent they should pull over and call the ambulance.

Mrs Pyrah said: “The last thing they said to me at the hospital was ‘people give birth at the side of the road all the time but it won’t be you.’ “So I came home and had a nap.”

The now mother-of-two eventually went into labour that afternoon and the couple got in their car and sped towards the hospital. But they barely made it around the corner before the St Clare’s college activities teacher ordered her husband to pull over and call the ambulance.

Mr Pyrah ignored the instruction and Sebastian Pyrah was born en route in Oxford Road.

She said: “I don’t think my husband wanted to believe what I was saying so he didn’t pull over.

“Two pushes later I gave birth and he pulled over then because he heard Sebastian crying.”

“I did it all myself and then he came around the side of the car and I was holding him.

“He went into shock. He was so shocked he couldn’t tell the ambulance service where we were even though we were about two minutes from home.

“He just started describing trees.”

It was in stark contrast to the birth of the couple’s first child Tobias, now two-years-old, which went smoothly at the John Radcliffe Hospital.

Mr Pyrah, an admissions and compliance manager, said: “It was just terrifying. I can’t describe how it felt seeing them both on the back seat.

“Two minutes down the road she said ‘I think the baby is coming’ I didn’t take it in, I didn’t stop, then I heard the baby crying and I had to stop. Because it wasn’t our first child there wasn’t panic and it just happened. We were just so happy.”