A Kentucky woman and proud mother of six delivered her baby boy on the side of a road on May 15 after feeling heavy contractions when she was driving home that day with her five children.
Heather Skaats recalled the experience with TODAY Parents, explaining that her previous home births “sort of taught” her to know what to do in such a situation.
The 34-year-old mother said the official due date was still three weeks away. She noted feeling “light contractions” before leaving home that day, but she figured there was still time “to run an errand” because her previous children weren’t born until eight hours after the first contractions.
Skaats told the magazine that her contractions suddenly intensified while returning home and began coming closer together, indicating that labor had begun. She realized time was pressing and started to drive faster in order to make it home for a water birth she had planned, but there wasn’t enough time.
Once her water broke, she got out of the vehicle into a nearby grass area next to a roadside and delivered her baby boy in a squatting position.
“I pulled over—assured the kids that everything was OK—and then I grabbed my phone and got out of the van,” Skaats said.
“I put my hand down there and his head started coming out with his body,” she recounted. “I didn’t even have to push. It was so quick. I was on the phone with my husband, Nick, and 20 seconds later, I was like, ‘He’s here!'”
Skaats said the newborn, who weighed seven pounds, immediately started crying. She got back in the car and proceeded to drive home after wrapping the baby boy in a blanket.
Once she and the children returned home, Skaats recalled that she delivered her placenta in the shower with the help of her 13-year-old daughter. Minutes later, her midwives arrived.
“We had to pick the grass off him,” she said with a smiling face in a May 15 statement on Facebook, adding photos of her wonderful family and newborn son.
The proud parents said in the same post that they are still deciding what to name the newest member of their family.
“I’m still in shock that I delivered my own baby on the side of the road. But he is perfect, all of the kids are happy to have him here, and today was a day I will never forget,” Skaats said, adding that her husband is not too happy about missing the birth of his son.
“But at least he was on the phone with me when I called to say ‘I’m going to have a baby on the side of the road,'” she said.
