Erica and Troy Campbell thought they had plenty of time to get to the hospital. With their third baby on the way, they bundled into the car and pressed record on their dashcam. Little did they know, little Nova wasn’t prepared to wait.
The family bloggers captured the entire dramatic birth of their baby daughter, as it unfolded on the side of a busy highway.
‘There’s something weird going on’
Erika’s water broke at around 5pm on May 10, 2021 with the couple heading to the hospital just 30 minutes later. “There’s something very weird going on,” Troy says as the couple calmly drives along. “No pain but I am feeling now like I gotta poo a little.” Erica adds.
The couple then jokes that they still have to decide on a middle name for their baby, as Erica breathes through contractions. “It’s not that bad,” she says. “That was a little one.” Troy, who is timing the contractions, excitedly shows the camera that they are now around three and a half minutes apart.
But just seconds later, it’s clear Erica is no longer breezing through the pain, her face grimacing. “Maybe we should call the midwife?” Troy asks. With Erica in too much pain to answer, he phones ahead to the hospital.
The excited dad then rubs his hands together, exclaiming, “Oh, yeah, this baby coming.” Erica speaks to the midwives, putting them on speaker as she deals with more contractions. They direct the couple to head straight to emergency.
‘Ring of fire!’
Troy explains to Erica that they’re only 16 minutes away, and to hold on. But as another contraction wave hits, Erica asks Troy to hurry. “I gotta push!” Erica exclaims. “You gotta push?! What do you mean you gotta push?” Troy responds. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no! You can’t push baby.”
Breathing heavily, Erica says she’s trying to hold it in, as Troy nervously checks how far they are from the hospital. The contractions continue, with Troy getting more and more concerned until Erica says, “Something feels like it’s coming out!”
“Babe do I need to pull over?” Troy asks. “I don’t know!” Erica says as she writhes in pain, trying to find a comfortable position. The couple calls the hospital, who advise them to pull over and call emergency services.
And in case there was any doubt about how close she was to giving birth, Erica screams, “Ring of fire!”
Baby born on side of busy highway
The midwife stays on the line and dials in the ambulance service, as Troy pulls over and heads around to Erica. “I can see the baby’s head! The baby’s head is out!” Troy says before the baby is born just seconds later.
“Is the baby crying?” asks the emergency services, and just like a perfectly scripted movie, Nova begins crying, along with her relieved parents.
The couple explains on their YouTube channel, “This is raw real footage of our baby being born. We could not have ever anticipated this … it was scary, very scary. The camera was rolling for Troy’s YouTube channel and we were hoping to film at the hospital but we never made it that far. This was a wild experience and we wanted to share it.”
More birth stories from the Grapeviner community…
- Birth Story: ‘Midwives cheered me on as I birthed in my car’
- Birth Story: ‘I knew something was very wrong’
- Birth Story: ‘My baby was born with two true cord knots’
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