A Perth mother has shared the story of the unexpected birth of her second child, where she gave birth to her baby with her partner in the front seat of her car.
In a video posted on tiktokMia Katson, 26, recalled the stormy events leading up to the birth of her daughter, which she described as both “wild” and “beautiful.”
She told that her delivery experience this time was completely different from her first experience, where she was induced.
He didn’t realize this past experience until it was almost too late.
“I woke up Monday morning feeling great,” she said.
But by the afternoon she started feeling a strange feeling in her lower abdomen, which felt “like gas or constipation pain”.
At 40 weeks and three days pregnant, she expected it to be the beginning of labor, but she didn’t think it was serious.
Despite this, she spent her day as normal, taking her elder daughter to swimming lessons before dropping her off at her mother’s house.
The turning point came during a routine checkup with her midwife in the afternoon, where the midwife performed a stretch and sweep, noting that she was already three centimeters dilated and “could dilate to about four.”
While the midwife predicted the baby would arrive before Friday, she reassured the mother that labor could still be a few days away.
When the couple returned home around 12:30 pm, the matter started escalating.
“I was bouncing and doing hip rocks on the birthing ball and my partner was deciding whether to go for a run or pick up our daughter,” she recalled.
Thankfully, they decided that their eldest daughter should stay at her grandmother’s house.
When her partner, Callum Rule, went for a quick run, Ms Catson jumped into the shower, hoping to relieve the discomfort caused by the heat.
“In the 20 minutes that I was in the shower, the pain really got worse,” she said.
But she still doubted whether she was really in labor, thinking the pain might just be irritation from the stretching and swabbing.
After struggling to time her contractions and calling the hospital at 1:35 p.m., the midwife advised her to wait another hour to see if the pain subsided.
However, things escalated quickly.
She tried to time the contractions, some three minutes apart, some seven minutes apart, and some 30 seconds apart.
“It was all over the store and was very confusing. My partner was getting herself ready and then at 1:35pm we thought maybe we should call the hospital to see what they said because I didn’t know when you had to leave for the hospital,” she said. He said.
“The midwife suggested leaving an hour to see if it went away, but if anything changes, go straight in. My biggest fear was going to the hospital and being sent home so I really wanted to wait as long as possible. “I wanted to give birth at home for a long time.”
“Twenty minutes after the phone call, the pain got worse,” she continued. “Now I could neither walk nor talk during contractions. I started to feel nervous about the car ride to the hospital.”
At 2:00 pm, they finally left for the hospital, which was about 20 minutes away, but just as they were getting ready to leave, her water broke.
“I was so excited because I knew it was real – we were going to have a baby,” she said.
What followed was a chaotic and surreal 11-minute drive that ended with the unexpected arrival of their baby.
“On the way to the hospital, I had two contractions on the road and I thought I was going to poop myself,” she admitted.
In the third contraction, at 2:11 pm, her baby “fell out” after “three to four pushes” and was born in the front seat of the car on the main road.
“I yelled at my partner to stop, and as soon as he opened my door, I had already pulled him out and placed him on my chest. She came out screaming and pink and we were in shock,” she said.
The couple called Triple-0 and paramedics arrived within seven minutes.
But the new mother described the paramedics, who were “two old guys”, as “a bit disappointing and unprofessional”, explaining that they debated in front of her whether to cut the cord in the car or transport her to an ambulance.
“I staggered to the ambulance, naked from the waist down, holding my baby’s umbilical cord, while cars passed by,” she said. “They didn’t have towels or blankets or anything.”
He also said that paramedics did not help him climb the stairs to the ambulance and he had to ask for assistance.
During the ambulance ride, she delivered the placenta, experienced painful contractions without pain relief and was told by paramedics to “just relax”.
The trip was extra stressful because she could see “a lot of blood” and she remembered postpartum hemorrhage during her first birth.
Despite losing 1.3 liters of blood and requiring an overnight stay in hospital, he described the experience as “beautiful”.
“I know that story will be painful for some people, but for me it was a positive experience,” she said.
“The only thing I’m sad about is the front seat of my car!”
