I have no words - woman now stranded after wanting to give birth in St Lucia (on the beach...)

[Nanny0gg]

https://www.nottinghampost.com/news/uk-world-news/new-mum-stranded-after-being-8669669

What on earth were they thinking??

@Dixiechickonhols “Yet they say she went into labour and couldn’t make to land. That’s not plausible.
Then once baby born at sea they don’t make the short journey to land instead they wait it out for 3 days before showing up at a hospital.”

That does all sound plausible to be.
If I were 30 miles or just 1 mile out and went into labour (her second so could be fairly quick) I would be telling my husband to drop anchor NOW, not be trying to sail into harbour!

They may well have docked not much later. But if you’re the sort of couple who want to free birth on a beach, and the birth has gone well, why would you rush? I’d be tired after labour. I’d drop anchor, cuddle up with my baby, maybe sleep, probably feed for hours… I think it’s quite plausible that you’d “baby moon” at sea, or possible in a harbour, enjoying the time with your baby and resting before trying to register. There’s a reason we have 6 weeks here in the U.K.!

Not that any of that is a decision I’d make myself… but I don’t think it’s odd that they would wait before going to the hospital.

I do sometimes find it hard to believe people are so stupid so start to think about other less legal things like surrogacy etc but that doesn’t really make sense either. I would bet money though that someone has been checking airport cctv to see if she was pregnant when she flew/there was anything dodge or coercive with Clive.

Lots of people just don't think.

Or simply don't realise there are unknown unknowns, so haven't grasped that they need to think.

The bit that really doesn't add up for me is why they left St Lucia instead of staying there and getting the DNA test and the baby's documents sorted out. Boat would be perfectly safe in a hurricane shelter there is necessary. (And another bit that doesn't compute - why if worried about the boat did they not return it to Martinique from whence it came (rather than going south past St Vincent and the Grenadines (which includes Mustique) and on to Grenada)

@Testina the 6 weeks only applies for assisted births though. If you have an unassisted birth you have to notify within 36 hours so seemingly you’d probably have issues rocking up somewhere after 3 days here too.

Hospital they pitched up at is only 30 mins by road from their intended beach location yet it took 3 days.
Even if she did suddenly give birth on the 90 min crossing they’d soon be at land and could have been at hospital within a few hours of birth.
If they’d done that my reading is they’d have got a birth certificate no problem and then could have got a passport with the bc.
Unless Clive got lost navigating boat or they were off elsewhere for unknown reasons it makes no sense.

What stupid fuckers. Selfish and ridiculous, too.

It is reassuring that they are being asked for a DNA test. Otherwise it would make it too easy to traffic babies.

That’s true and possibly a deliberate decision to keep baby away from hospital if they wanted none medicalised birth.
I was thinking if I’d given birth with only Clive I’d want me and baby checking out.

What a pair of fuckwits.

Gave birth. Waited "a few days" to take a very small 3kg baby to a hospital

Decided to take all these risks leaving their 8yo DD in the UK but claim they are abandoned.

Apparently are running out of money. So didn't plan this well for anything being different to what they expected.

Decided to take a boat and give birth on a beach in hurricane season.

Their poor kids. They've landed up with 2 parents who are going to make benign neglect look like love bombing!

“Unless Clive got lost navigating boat”

Clive strikes me as someone who would never ask for directions, preferring instead to commune with the gulls and trust his knowledge of the stars.

No sympathy either.

RIP Baby Marten.

Did they have travel insurance? What if one of them fall ill even now? Why are they continuing to hire a boat if they are running out of money? Surely a small apartment would be cheaper?

🤣🤣

Yeah we all seemed to have missed the fact she planned to birth on a public beach.

Do you mean Constance Hall?

So they fly to Martinique in March
In April they hire a boat cos the weather an hour and a half away is much better.
Baby gets born during that 90 minutes.
They don't try to register the baby until three days later, in a hospital that was only 30 minutes drive from where they docked the boat. Hospital tells them too late to register and no proof baby is theirs.
They then worry about hurricanes so instead of taking the boat back to Martinique and hunkering down somewhere safe with their newborn, getting a DNA test etc they sail over 90 miles with the tiny baby to a totally different Island. Not thinking that the baby being born elsewhere may be an issue.
Now there are also hurricanes on Grenada and they have no money.
Meanwhile, the 8 year old has been without her parents for over 5 months.

They are either incredibly stupid, or they are up to no good and are still incredibly stupid.

Baby could be theirs, could be bought, could be trafficked, could be surrogate... The fact that many babies look like Rover-polishing-Clive is not helping them really.

I want to know LOTS more. And I really want to hear from Clive's ex wife in Stevenage

They just “picked up a boat” and knew how to navigate and sail it?
And looking at your map St Vincent and the Grenadines is closer than Grenada and more affiliated ( if that’s the right word) to Britain. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Vincent_and_the_Grenadines Surely it would have made more sense to go there ?
WS the eight year old, had she had a passport, expected to leave school for 4-8 weeks and witness the birth ? What if she didn’t want to?
Has to be more to this.

@itsgettingweird “Waited "a few days" to take a very small 3kg baby to a hospital”

6.5 lbs. My full term first baby was 2.98kg. That’s not “very small” and she was perfectly healthy - the midwife and doctor who did my release check had no concerns at all. She certainly looked like a tiddler, but I think “very small” is a bit over dramatic. Especially if you’ve had a smaller baby before, if they’re feeding and filling nappies and happy and alert, I wouldn’t rush to hospital on 3kg alone.

They also won’t have weighed the baby I expect. My delivery midwife said she liked to have a guess… guessed 7lb for mine and weighed her twice as she was surprised to be so wrong. So their baby may not have looked “very small” to them.

Don’t get me wrong - 3kg or 5kg, I’d be going straight for the check up, for both of us! I think they were reckless not to. But I don’t think they had a particularly small baby causing additional need for a check.

Thru don't even return tickets for the adults

Clive will almost certainly have ex-partners, children, parents, parents of ex-partners who are currently negotiating with press to sell their story!

I do wonder if some of them are reading this thread and feeling tempted to post. I'm surprised the journos haven't found passengers who saw them on the outbound flight to interview. 'Yeah, like, she didn't look pregnant' etc.

Can you even get travel insurance if you are 35 weeks? It must cost a fortune if so.

I've just been looking at boat timings.

Fast catarmaran from Martinique to St Lucia is c.80 minutes
Ordinary ferry is about 2 hours
Sailing yourself could take up to double that.

If the aim was to give birth on a beach, why not take one of the faster boats over? It's much cheaper than chartering for yourself.

I feel so sorry for their 8 year old. She won’t forget that they left her for such a long time and in such ridiculous circumstances.

@DailyMaui “In April they hire a boat cos the weather an hour and a half away is much better.
Baby gets born during that 90 minutes. “

Are you basing that 90 minutes on another poster saying it’s a 1.5 hour ferry?

They’re in a small boat.

I’m not claiming any personal knowledge of sailing the Caribbean islands, but this person does and puts it at 4 hours.

Sometimes, shit happens!

We also miss a lot of detail here. They might have been breaking the (9?) hour journey to Grenada into several days, enjoying the trip. They might have been anchored not far off St Lucia for a few more hours, just enjoying the view and planning to sail again next day.

I would love to know!

My theory:
They were living on the boat, she felt a contraction and said, “Clive - engine on, getting me to the beach NOW.” Then Clive fucked up because he navigates with his sprite guides and dick, and went south instead of north. 4 hours later, Iuliia has a baby in her arms and is saying, “you cock Clive, that is not Martinique, that’s St Lucia, turn the fucking map round you pillock”.

So they wanted to do this fancy birth but didn't think of any consequences of their actions and how to get back.

Actions have consequences and if you are utter dipshits you deserve to have it made as awkward as possible, seeing as they could have looked into how awkward it would have been.