Britain’s Largest Family Celebrates As 44-Year-Old Mother Gives Birth To Her 22nd Child

It’s not easy being a mother of multiple children and having to deal with several pregnancies and childbirth. Many parents feel that their firstborn usually gives them maximum cause to worry but when you have 22 of them, you tend to wonder about the strain it can really cause. However, that wasn’t the case for Britain’s largest family who just welcomed their 22nd child into their fold.

This is far from the ideal time to conceive and give birth as the novel coronavirus has resulted in many a problem both in humans and in hospitals. Along with the standard worries that the birth of a child brings, pregnant women in recent months are worried about whether they have the virus and if their child will get infected too. Sue Radford from England, however, is the matriarch of Britain’s largest family and she gave birth to her 22nd baby on April 3 at 10:01 pm, the Sun reported. She told the outlet that giving birth to her recent baby was far more terrifying than even her first one due to the ongoing lockdown.

Sue was frantic that her child might fall sick but everything changed when she got to the hospital. She was in isolation with her large family and had her husband Noel go to the hospital to oversee the process. Upon arrival, she tested first for the virus herself before being allowed to enter the maternity ward. After that was done though, she felt much calmer and reassured upon the attention and care she received from the midwives.

After giving birth to her beautiful baby girl, 7lb, they decided to name her Heidie Rose. The family now has 12 girls and 10 boys, and how! The newborn baby will join the rest of her family members in lockdown at their 10-bed house in Morecambe, Lancaster.  “We’re all so in love with her,” the Radford family said on their Instagram page. In another post, they shared the image of their baby and captioned it, “We feel so blessed to have her here safe and sound.”

“The ten-hour labor was hard. But now we have weeks of isolation with a newborn baby. Let the crazy times begin. Only two of the kids have flown the nest, so we are all home now for the foreseeable,” she told Sun UK. “I was more scared than I had ever been going into hospital with everything going on with the virus. I was so worried that Noel wouldn’t be allowed to stay with me. We have all been isolating and it seemed wrong to leave our safe bubble to go to a hospital, but when I got there I felt safe straight away.”

The family went on to share pictures of Heidie on Instagram with one of her pictures captioned, “Just chilling with daddy.” Sue is now 44-years-old and describes herself as the “original panic buyer”. Her typical grocery supply list usually includes 100 nappies, 16 loaves of bread, 114 pints of milk, 48 large eggs, 3kg of pasta, 24 chicken breasts, and 28 toilet rolls. “All the shopping I ever do looks like I am clearing the shelves of toilet roll. When I walk out of a supermarket I am like the people you see on the news,” she told the publication.

“It is pointless for me to buy two packets of chicken breast or 12 eggs. That wouldn’t even feed everyone for a light lunch,” she added. “Buying nappies will be a problem if I can’t get any. Archie and Bonnie are still in nappies and now I need newborn ones for the baby.”