WHEN actress Sunetra Sarker decided to come back to Liverpool for the birth of her first baby, she thought she'd got it all perfectly planned.

"But nothing's easy with me, I should know that by now," she laughs.

In fact, baby Noah began making his entrance into the world at midnight on the day they moved into their new rented home.

And he didn't arrive until 36 hours, two failed inducements, an epidural and an emergency Caesarean later!

"It was what you'd call very tricky, all the way," smiles Sunetra, who's back on TV this week in C4's sexy drama No Angels.

"I wanted to have the baby at the Women's hospital so I could be near my family and friends in Liverpool, so we rented a flat here thinking we still had about two weeks before the baby was due.

"But the baby was 10 days early, and literally as soon as we put the last box down on the floor my waters broke. So we drove to the Women's and I was getting monitored for a few days, then they decided to induce me. Two inducements and an epidural didn't work, and when I finally pushed his head out they realised he was facing the sky rather than the other way so they had to push him back in and give me an emergency Caesarean.

"By the time he eventually arrived I felt like I'd researched birthing on every possible level."

The 31-year-old former Brookside star discovered she was pregnant while she was filming the last series of No Angels, in which she plays nurse and party girl Anji.

She and husband Nick, a stonemason, had only been married a year and she admits a baby wasn't on their agenda just yet. But it was a happy surprise and Sunetra is clearly thrilled to be a mum.