Although they might only live four blocks from the St. Therese Health Centre in St. Paul, Melissa Anderson and her husband Jason had quite the medical emergency on Oct. 14, which required Jason to deliver his newborn daughter via help from a 911 operator.
Originally due on Oct. 8, Melissa was waiting to be induced into labour the following week. At 12:05 a.m. on Oct. 14, Melissa started feeling contractions. Not wanting to rush to the hospital just yet, she laid in bed for about 45 minutes before deciding to get up and head to the hospital.
“I walked out to the vehicle myself,” explains Melissa, as she cradles and feeds her newborn daughter, recalling the events from five days prior. When she reached the vehicle, she realized that she was physically unable to get into the car and decided to head back into the house where Jason was packing up what would be needed for the hospital.
When Melissa came back into the house, she was in a bit of a panic, says Jason. The couple decided to call 911 and Melissa laid down in the living room. As he spoke to the operator, Jason noticed that the baby’s head was already crowning.
He remembers telling the operator, “My wife’s having a baby, like right now.”
The operator went through the necessary steps, guiding Jason and telling him what to do until the ambulance arrived. Soon enough, the baby’s shoulders were visible and after encouraging his wife to push, the calm dad ended up delivering his youngest daughter, Elizabeth Layne Anderson, at home on the living room couch at approximately 1:19 a.m.
“Everyone said Jason was really calm,” says Melissa, adding, “I was just in shock . . . I don’t remember a lot of things (from that night).”
“I don’t think I felt panicked at all,” says Jason. “You got to do what you got to do.”
Once the baby was born and making noise, Jason was directed by the operator to find something to tie off the umbilical cord. He ran to the boot rack, ripped a shoelace from one of his own shoes, and tied the cord, while their baby laid with her mom.
Within minutes, an ambulance arrived and before hanging up the phone, the operator asked one last question – if it was a boy or a girl. Jason admits he didn’t even check to see the sex of the baby, and was only concerned about his wife and if the baby was breathing.
“It’s been my first delivery,” he says with a laugh.
In the midst of everything happening, the couple’s 19-month-old daughter, Emberlie, also awoke to the commotion. Thankfully, Jason’s parents live in the basement and his mom was able to offer support during the ordeal and take Emberlie with them.
Throughout Melissa’s pregnancy, the couple read several books about natural labours, and had decided they wanted this labour and delivery to be as natural as possible, but they certainly didn’t plan for what took place.
“You can read all the books in the world, it doesn’t prepare you for that,” says Jason, admitting they did skip the chapters about at-home births.
Following the birth of baby Elizabeth, Jason told family and friends the story of what had happened, and was met with disbelief.
“We don’t believe it either,” says Melissa. “But it happened.”
Once the ambulance personnel packed up Melissa and Elizabeth, Jason took off to the hospital to meet them. He says it was funny arriving at the hospital to all the nursing staff that had heard what was going on from the 911 call.
As the nurses filled out the paperwork, they made jokes about who the “attending physician” was, and had to fill in the “place of birth” as the couple’s home address.
And as the couple looks back on their daughter’s birth, they both admit that so many things could have gone wrong, but didn’t. Jason is most thankful to the 911 operator, known only by her first name Karen, who helped him deliver his baby girl.