Mother gives birтh in the front seat of a car on a busy highway
In one of the most Aussie birth stories you’re ever likely to hear, Lydia Kirk ended up giving birth on a makeshift bed on the Bruce Highway last week, somewhere between Bowen and Proserpine, with a local property owner acting as a nurse. The mum-of-one thought she had plenty of time to make it to the hospital after a long first labor, but her little girl had other plans.
Chris Broucek was rushing his partner Lydia Kirk from Bowen to Proserpine Hospital on October 6 when Ms. Kirk noticed her daughter was beginning to crown. Lydia explained that her hometown of Bowen has no birthing suite, so she knew she and her fiancé, Chris Broucek, had a 70km drive ahead of them. The now mother-of-two said, “I said to Chris, ‘I have to push, I have to push!’ and he’s like ‘no, you don’t!’ Before we started heading to Proserpine Hospital, we went to Bowen Hospital where our midwife told us we were four centimeters dilated and needed to start heading down to Proserpine. We were about halfway into our drive, and I said to my fiancé that I needed to push. He told me, ‘I don’t think so!’ I pushed about three times and said to him, ‘I can feel a bulge, Chris, I can feel her head.'”
Lydia says that’s when Chris swung into action and called triple zero, but little Layla was already well on the way. She said, “We were still driving when she was delivered, and I brought her up onto my chest. He had to tear my underwear off with his hands because I had to pull them to the side when she came out.” The couple then pulled over and followed the directions from the emergency operator on the phone, which included laying on the side of the road because Lydia’s seat wouldn’t recline due to the car seats in the back. Lydia added, “A local property owner stopped and brought us some towels while we waited for the ambulance. Once the ambulance arrived, they made sure both Layla and I were safe and okay, clamped the umbilical cord, and got Chris to cut her cord.”
Ms. Kirk said she held Layla close as Mr. Broucek called 000. He said paramedics told him to lay his fiancée down, but he was unable to recline the front passenger seat in their car all the way down because of baby seats in the back. Mr. Broucek said, “But I had a nurse’s kit and some blankets, and I made a makeshift bed on the side of the road. I couldn’t remove the baby because of the cord; I didn’t have my Leatherman or knife and had to rip the jocks off with my hands because they were expecting the afterbirth to keep coming out.”
Ms. Kirk, who also has a two and a half-year-old son with Mr. Broucek, said her first birth was also quick, and she believed the second time would be no different. An ambulance arrived to meet the couple on the side of the road to make sure Layla was okay. Paramedics helped Mr. Broucek cut the umbilical cord as his wife lay on a makeshift bed on the grass. Lydia said, “Not a lot was going through my mind except wondering if Layla was okay and healthy – she came so quickly that I was in a state of shock, to be honest. I’m just glad I had Chris with me because he took over the situation and made sure everything was okay.”
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