PROVO, UT — As if giving birth isn’t difficult enough, some women are left with no other option than to give birth wherever they are at the moment.
Shamika Hayes is one of those women.
Hayes gave birth to her fourth child in the parking lot of Utah Valley Hospital on July 6 after contractions started at around 4 a.m.
“I noticed that I had started contractions,” Hayes said. “I was trying to find clothes and pack things and try to get things ready. The duration was closer together, so I had to hurry and get things done.”
After waking her husband and gathering her things, the couple got her father-in-law to watch their other three children, and they headed to the hospital where they had a series of bad luck on the road.
“Every single light that we hit was red. It was horrible,” she said.
Her husband — fearful of getting pulled over — was very careful not to speed or run red lights even while she pressured him to speed up as her contractions began to become more and more painful. She said she began to feel the need to push.
“I looked over and he was going only 35 miles per hour and hitting every single red light,” Hayes said.
She said she tried to breathe through the contractions and knew she’d have to start pushing on the car ride there. When they pulled up to the parking lot of the hospital, the baby couldn’t wait any longer.
“I felt her head come out and then she just slid out,” Hayes said. “I was wearing capris that were loose, so she had pushed my pants down a little bit and she just fell out inside my pants.”
Two bystanders helped her at that point, freeing the newborn baby girl and placing her on Hayes’ stomach so she could hold her. Hayes’ husband had to run inside to find nurses to aid them. Officials with Utah Valley Hospital confirmed the incident.
Hayes said she is grateful her baby, who she named Elana Ann Hayes, is OK.