Ring Camera Captures Woman Giving Birth On Her Front Lawn
Her mother helped deliver the baby boy.
YouTube When a couple in Northern California envisioned delivering their baby boy, Thomas, they imagined it would happen in a hospital bed.
However, the baby had other ideas and wasn't going to wait around to make it there.
Emily Johnson and her husband Michael had wanted to give birth in the hospital five minutes away with an epidural.
Instead, the birth happened on their front lawn in front of their Ring camera.
“I was going to accept those wonderful pain medicines at the hospital,” Johnson told CNN. “Having a natural childbirth was not in my birth plan. But given how fast the labor progressed, we knew I was not getting there.”
She continued, “I was really eager to be done. I was hoping he was going to come early, but we never really knew,” the new mother said.
But plans changed for the couple.
Johnson said she started having contractions a week earlier on November 11, 2021. She believed she had plenty of time to get to the hospital as her contractions were 10 minutes apart for about three hours.
“Then the contractions went from three minutes to two minutes 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.
As she entered active labour, Johnson wasn’t able to make it to the car and began to lay in the grass.
“We got to the car and I just said, ‘No, I can’t get into this car, I’m just like, ‘I’m going to get on the grass. I’m going to be here. This is my spot'” Johnson said to KCRA.
"I just laid back in the grass and took a nice deep breath, (and then) already he's here I can relax. He's fine, but man, do I never want to do this again," Johnson said.
Johnson’s mother Kristy Sparks helped deliver the baby. She got on her hands and knees as she saw Thomas’s head appear.
“By the time they walked up to me, I had a baby in my arms crying. It was unreal,” Sparks said, remembering when the ambulance arrived on the scene.
Johnson was facing the doorbell camera and can be heard yelling on the live footage.
According to Johnson, while her husband was going back and forth he noticed the little blue light was on and had been recording the entire time.
"I'm just thankful that I was facing in that direction because otherwise, I don't think we'd be able to share the video footage with anybody," Johnson said.
“I was like, ‘Oh, this is going to be on the camera. I’m going to watch this and we share this,’” Michael said.
When Emily and Thomas arrived at the hospital they received help right away.
Johnson added, “I joke that I was like a cow giving birth in the field, because once I got to the hospital, I had grass clippings 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.’”
Both of them are doing well, fortunately, in spite of Thomas's unconventional entry into the world.
Thomas, seven pounds 11 ounces, was born at 10:42pm.
Sydney Taylor is a writer who focuses on News and Entertainment topics.