Baby born in hospital parking lot

BY WENDY ELLIOTT

welliott@kentvilleadvertiser.ca

NovaNewsNow.com

Shannon Stevens of Kentville looks at Father's Day differently since he delivered his son Callum in the parking lot at Valley Regional Hospital. "There is a special connection," he says, "a bond. It's the ultimate experience."

Callum wasn't Shannon’s and Karla's first child. Gavin, who just turned three, had a longer and more typical birth experience.

April 30 was Callum's due date and Shannon says, "he wasn't waiting around."

Karla had been for an examination the previous day and was told the baby hadn't dropped yet. But the next day she began to feel mild cramps. At 7 p.m. the Stevens alerted a friend who was going to stay with Gavin if the need arose.

Karla had trouble sleeping that night and at 2:15 a.m. her water broke. By the time her friend Tanya arrived, she was pacing in the driveway. "It probably took 10 minutes. I could hear her truck coming up the hill and I was screaming at Shannon, ‘she's here!'"

Go through the red light

En route from Palmeter's Subdivision down Park St., Karla urged Shannon to go through the red light downtown. "She reclined her seat all the way back and told me she had the urge to push," Shannon recalled. "It was so different from Gavin's birth,” Karla said. “It felt like a dream. My body was pushing.”

Shannon parked the Honda Civic and ran into emergency. He was offered a wheelchair and set off for his wife. "Meanwhile, I'm screaming. I'm so grateful it was 3 a.m., not 3 p.m.," chuckles Karla, who had stretched out flat, a foot on the dashboard. "When I got back she had her pant leg off and the door open," Shannon said. "I thought I could see the baby's head."

So he tore back into emergency, but no staff was visible. The four or five people waiting to be treated all jumped though, he remembers.

Baby head’s popped out

Back at the Honda Civic, Shannon saw Karla push and the baby's head popped out. "The two of us are out there in the dark,” he said. “With the next push, out came the baby. I looked to see the sex and then I put him on Karla's belly."

At that point medical staff rushed out to the car. "We had no blankets. We're just standing there. It was 6C we heard later. I could see the steam coming off him," Shannon said.

A physician, who had just arrived, cut the umbilical cord and Callum was wrapped up quickly.

Meanwhile, Karla was reassured when she heard her baby cry right away. Then she crawled "so attractively into the wheelchair. The car was a

mess." "It was definitely intense," Shannon said of the 30 minutes between Karla's water breaking and Callum's arrival. "I was scared he'd slip. They are so slippery."

The couple wanted two boys to complete their family. Looking back, they still can't get over how fast Callum's birth was.

Shannon said, "it's a shame all fathers can't experience (a delivery). It was super smooth."