Delivering her baby in the middle of the highway at night in the pouring rain wasn’t what Jessica Amato-Ali had in mind for the birth of her first child but luckily her mum, Noosa Today’s Simone Bell, was there to catch her when Nora Grace came into the world.
“It was pretty intense while it was happening,“ Jess said of giving birth on the side of the road on the way to hospital. “It’s one of those things you think; I wouldn’t do that again. We were pleased it all went well. A lot of things could have gone wrong.“
Nora Grace was born just after 8pm on Thursday 27 April. Jess, her husband Kerese and Simone weren’t expecting the birth to be so quick.
Jess had visited the midwife that morning to be told IVF babies like hers generally don’t come naturally and contractions could last 36 hours but if they got intense to go to the hospital. But Nora Grace had other plans.
“I was expecting the contractions to have gotten closer together,“ Jess said.
To hurry the labour along Jess tried walking up and down the driveway and swimming in the pool in the pouring rain.
Simone put it down to a high pain tolerance, an attribute they shared, that hid the strength of contractions Jess must have been experiencing.
As they waited at home for labour to progress it was Kerese who said, “we should go now“ so they headed for the hospital.
“We’d been driving about 40 minutes (about 10 minutes from the hospital) and we hit roadworks on the Bruce Highway. I thought Oh My God I’m not going to make it. I saw an ambulance beside us and said we should flag it down,“ Jess said.
“I remember taking the (Kawana) turnoff. I don’t remember much after that. It’s like my body knew what to do. I was in the passenger seat, one leg on the dashboard, one leg on the side of the car. I couldn’t move the seat back. We had a child seat in the back. I was lying across the handbrake, across Kerese. He held the phone. He was really chilled. He was really good.“
Simone got out from the back seat to deliver the baby while Kerese relayed instructions from paramedics who were driving up and down the highway having trouble locating them. Simone had rain on her back and could hear water being tossed up at her from passing traffic.
“(The paramedic) said have you got something to wrap the baby in?“ she said. Kerese just reached back and picked up a towel on the back seat, handing it to Simone.
“We were all pretty calm. We just did what we had to do,“ she said.
“Can you feel the head?“ the paramedic asked? “You’re going to have to catch it, don’t drop it. It’s going to come flying out. Next contraction she came out. After I’d gotten out of the car she had the baby within three minutes. There was no way she could have lasted any longer.“
Simone held her first grandchild for about 15 minutes before paramedics arrived. Jess’ best friend found their location through an app linking both their phones and relayed the information to the paramedics.
After two nights in hospital a healthy 2.6kg Nora Grace and Jess went home with a story to tell.
