As Amy Lou Smith sits dreamily cradling her newborn daughter Aida on tonight's first Britain’s Got Talent live semi-final, she might be the happiest woman in the country.
It isn’t just that she will be lighting up the stage once again after an electrifying audition singing Beyoncé’s Listen when she was 30 weeks pregnant.
It isn’t even the blissful, milky, new mum bubble. Instead it’s a deep down relief of having two healthy children after a first pregnancy she barely survived.
It left her so traumatised Amy Lou waited three years before trying again as she’d always wanted more children.
Amazingly that second pregnancy coincided with her second ambition... appearing on BGT and storming through to the next round.
It’s a very different feeling to the first time around. Her son Hudson, now four, was born in August 2018. “I was very poorly carrying him,” she says. “We weren’t sure what was going on but he was small, too. And the last five weeks, I couldn’t get out of bed.”
Terrifying for a first-time mum. “They decided to induce me at 37 weeks, and everything seemed OK at first,” says the 34-year-old. Hudson arrived and his startled cry filled the delivery room. Then Amy Lou collapsed.
There was no precious mum and baby bonding as staff fought to stabilise her, and work out what was going on.
An abscess in Amy Lou’s stomach had been growing unseen, along with baby Hudson. Now it had burst, flooding her body with poison.
“I had sepsis and my organs were deteriorating,” she says.
Amy Lou was conscious but out of it and on oxygen, as staff desperately tried different anti-biotics to battle the infection overwhelming her body.
As she lay fighting for her life, nurses cared for her baby son.
Every day that passed was a day Amy Lou would never get back.
No skin-to-skin cuddles or feeds or nappy changes, a hundred special moments stolen. But there was even more at stake… The drugs weren’t working.
“Mum and Dad were on a cruise and they had to be called back as it looked so bad for me,” she says.
And just as everything seemed lost one anti-biotic mercifully started to work. A long climb back to health began.
“It was a month before I got out of hospital,” she says. “And I didn’t hold Hudson for the first three months of his life. I never got to know him in the days after his birth. I was traumatised.”
A gnawing fear remained, could anything like this happen again? “I’m such a maternal person and my dream was to have more children but it was scary.”
With the support of loving partner Kevin, 30, a lorry driver, she made up for the lost time with Hudson, adoring every inch of him and every moment of being his mum. But the fear stayed, so it was three years before the couple, from Tipton, West Midlands, felt able to try for another baby.
“It was terrifying,” Amy Lou says.
In the meantime, a year earlier, she had chased a different dream. A sunbed shop worker by day and part-time pub singer by night, she’d always pictured herself in front of our starry judges…
“I’d decided to apply to Britain’s Got Talent,’ she says.
To Kevin and Amy Lou’s joy, she got pregnant again last August. “Our baby was so wanted but it had taken so
much to start trying again.”
And as they prepared to face their fears, a call came. Would Amy-Lou like to audition for BGT? “I’m pregnant!” she blurted out. No problem. Amy Lou, seven months gone, auditioned at The London Palladium, mesmerising the audience and judge Simon Cowell.
And when her hand strayed to her bump and cradled it as she sang, a nation swooned. Amy Lou chuckles. “Aida was kicking,” she says, “she normally did when I sang.” She was always singing to Bump - You Are My Sunshine or Rockabye Baby.
Beyoncé’s belter must have been quite a shock!
Amy Lou sailed through the audition then went home to get on with baby growing. “The midwives were so good,” she says. “They knew what I’d been through with Hudson.” She was to be induced on Saturday, April 15, settling into Russells Hall Hospital, Dudley, two days earlier.
The big day began with quite some news – her audition was to be screened that night.
Aida was born at 3.59pm, weighing 5lb 14oz. There were all the fingers and toes, she was perfect in every way.
“The nurses and midwives were wonderful,” Amy Lou says. Ecstatic, bonding with Aida as she wished she could have done with Hudson, Amy Lou settled down at 8pm to watch her audition on her phone screen.
“Kevin had been running about the hospital, telling people I was on telly that night. Word had got around,” she says. “I was swarmed with congratulations. It was amazing.”
The little girl who could sing Danny Boy, taught by her gran, before she could talk, had just given birth and captivated a nation all in one day! Back home, Amy Lou luxuriated in all the baby firsts she’d missed with her little Hudson. Why not name her baby after Alesha or Amanda? Make Simon godfather…? It’s Aida after Ada in Peaky Blinders,” she laughs. “I’m a massive fan.”
To prepare for the semis, Amy Lou has been kind to herself, concentrating on settling Aida into the family. She rehearses while her baby naps.
Going to Asda without being mobbed is a challenge, but Amy Lou isn’t doing it all for fame.
“It’s for my family,” she says. “I’d love to own our home.”
But has her talent been passed on? “Hudson takes after Kevin and doesn’t really sing, but judging by the lungs on Aida when she cries for a bottle, she’ll be the one,” Amy Lou laughs.
“What’s perfect is my family. I have two healthy, beautiful children and having nearly lost it all, I know how precious that is,” she adds.
Britain’s Got Talent live semis on Monday night at 8pm on ITV1 and ITVX
