Following a “brutal” pregnancy, Jenna Christie found herself wondering if her second baby would ever make his grand arrival. By May 15, Christie had gone beyond her due date and was at 41 weeks plus two days gestation, telling Newsweek that each day “felt like a year.”
To make matters worse, Christie, of Niagara, Ontario, had been experiencing prodromal labor for several weeks. This is known as false labor contractions which can feel like the real thing, but they never get stronger and don’t lead to dilation.
“I was getting more discouraged by the day. I knew he’d come, but anyone who’s been in those shoes knows the mental game it takes to go overdue,” Christie said.
When May 15 arrived, Christie spent the day trying everything to induce labor. But after hours of waiting and seemingly no change, she went to bed at around 10 p.m. She was woken up by contractions, but they felt exactly like the prodromal labor contractions, so she tried to sleep it off.
Christie said: “I called my midwives twice that night (around 12 a.m. and around 3 a.m.) but I wasn’t sure if this was it just because it truly felt like what I was feeling for weeks. They told me to take a bath, try to relax and call if things ramped up.
“After the bath I tried to go back to sleep because I thought things might have been settling down, but around 3 a.m. I noticed bleeding. The midwife offered to come to my house and check me, but when she got to the house it was around 4 a.m. and I was 8 centimeters.”
That was not the update that Christie expected, as it meant she was almost ready to push. Nonetheless, she still thought she had some time.
Instead of hurrying to the hospital, Christie and her husband, Adam Christie, 40, made arrangements for their 2-year-old daughter. Christie called her dad, who was around 30 minutes away, to babysit.
“My husband was getting super nervous and ended up waking my daughter and putting her in the car, and we decided to leave and tell my dad to meet us at the hospital instead,” Christie said.
She continued: “I had a crazy intense contraction and I felt my water break. The second it broke, I felt so much pressure, and I knew I was about to have the baby in the car. I felt the urge to push and felt the head come out. I told my husband to pull over because I needed him to catch the baby.”
Thankfully, he was able to safely pull the car over and ran around to his wife’s side of the car. As soon as he opened the door, the baby came out.
Giving birth in the car was certainly not what Christie had planned, but fortunately she and her son were both alright. Her husband called 911 and they were assisted by a dispatcher over the phone until paramedics arrived minutes later.
Christie and the baby went to the hospital in an ambulance, and the midwives couldn’t help but salute her heroics. As for her husband, he certainly struggled to fathom how the events of that night unfolded.
“He’s honestly a little traumatized, but he is a very level-headed guy and did know what to do under pressure,” Christie told Newsweek.
Once it was clear that she and her baby, now 7 months old, were doing well, they left the hospital. Christie couldn’t resist sharing her unbelievable birth story on social media (@jennamaaac on Instagram). Many of the Instagram Reels have gone viral, with one generating over 2.1 million views and 35,400 likes on Instagram at the time of writing.
Christie joked alongside the viral video that her “birth plan went out the passenger window.”
The online response to her story is beyond anything Christie anticipated. She said it’s been “pretty cool” to connect with so many other women who have their own shock-inducing (and somewhat terrifying) birth stories.
Hundreds of Instagram users took to the comments to share their thoughts and to hail Christie’s unflinching bravery.
One comment reads: “The Silly Goose shirt is pure perfection for the situation! You go girl delivering your own baby is a feat not many can claim!”
Another Instagram user wrote: “That man might need a few therapy sessions based on his expression.”
While another person joked: “I like how he’s more distressed than the woman that just had an unmedicated child.”