Page 16 - IAV Digital Magazine #534

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Doorbell Camera Records California Woman Giving Birth On Lawn
By Ben Hooper
Nov. 11 (UPI) -- A California woman who didn't have time to make it to the hospital when she went into labor delivered her baby in the front yard -- where the entire scene was recorded by her doorbell cam- era.
Emily Johnson, of Vacaville, said she and her husband, Michael, weren't in a huge rush to get to the hospital when her contractions started Nov. 4, a week before her due date, because they were 10 minutes apart and the couple's house is only a 5-minute drive from the hospital.
"Then the contrac- tions went from three minutes to two min- utes to one minute in a matter of 20 to 30 minutes, and we are like, 'Oh, we got to get into the car; we have to go,'" Johnson told KCRA- TV.
Johnson said she made it as far as the car before she real- ized she wouldn't get to the hospital in time.
"I'm just like, 'I'm going to get on the grass,'" she recalled. "'I'm going to be here. This is my spot.'"
Johnson delivered baby Thomas with
help from her mother, Kristy Sparks.
Emergency respon- ders arrived just after the infant was born.
"By the time they walked up to me, I had a baby in my arms crying," Sparks said. "It was unreal."
The birth was caught on video by the
Johnsons' Ring door- bell camera.
"I'm just thankful that I was facing in that direction because oth- erwise, I don't think we'd be able to share the video footage with anybody," Johnson said.
Johnson said the unusual birth now makes for a great
story.
"I joke that I was like a cow giving birth in the field, because once I got to the hos- pital, I had grass clip- pings falling right off me and the nurses were wiping dirt off my knee and I'm like, 'Oh, I did give birth in the lawn,'" she said.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine