She gave birth in a parking lot. Now her midwife is talking about that ‘crazy’ day
She just had a few feet to go, but nature had other plans.
New mom Susan Anderson was about to enter Natural Birth Works in Margate Thursday, when her baby made a surprise entrance in the parking lot.
RING doorbell camera footage shows Anderson leaning over slightly, her husband Joseph Anderson and a midwife Sandra Lovaina at her side. Suddenly, feet away from the building, a baby emerges from the Coral Springs resident’s loose shorts. Two cops who happened to be in the area look on.
“During the car ride to the birth center, I turned to my husband, and I was like, ‘I need to push!” Anderson told Local 10. “By the time we got to the first step, the head was coming.”
The baby, a girl the couple later named Julia, begins to cry.
After the center posted the video on Facebook, the video began getting shared thousands of times.
“Multitasking by catching a baby and letting them know we were all good was quite the experience! One of the most exciting births of 2020,” said the caption. “One we won’t forget! Mom & baby are doing amazing and we can all laugh at how awesome this birth was.”
Over the weekend, Lovaina discussed what happened via Zoom with another of the center’s midwives, Gelena Hinkley.
“It’s so crazy. We never expected all this attention. It’s just mind boggling. We are so happy that it brought smiles to people’s faces and it brought a little joy in the world during this craziness,” said Lovaina. She goes on to explain that this type of delivery is not uncommon, a precipitous or rapid birth occurs in roughly one in three women.
She talked also about how she and mom both had to make lightning-fast decisions: Try to make it inside or give birth right there.
“I asked her, ‘Are you OK to walk?’ and she said, ‘Yes,”’ Lovaina said of the first-time mom. “The baby was already making its way and she was like, ‘uh-oh’ [but] she was in control of the entire situation.”
This story was originally published June 29, 2020 at 4:56 PM.
