In skydiving, most participants must complete two or three tandem jumps before they're allowed to leap from the plane alone. But when it comes to childbirth, one Long Island woman discovered that just because you've got three successful deliveries under your belt doesn't necessarily mean you want to do the fourth one solo.
According to CBS New York, Estenia Zavala was in no rush to get to the hospital on Wednesday, even after she felt her first contractions. They were, after all, five hours apart, and as the mother of three other kids, she decided there was no need to panic.
Zavala and her husband, Saul Peraza, began their leisurely drive the the hospital, expecting to have plenty of time. “I was just driving nice and slow,” Peraza told the station.
But fetuses are notoriously impractical, and this one decided it was coming out, right in the middle of Route 25A, right on the seat of the family's Ford Explorer. The couple tried pulled over to a police station in Oyster Bay Cove, but it was closed. That's around the same time they realized they had no cell service, leaving them no choice but to roll up their shirtsleeves and perform the delivery themselves.
“It never happened in my life—I only see on the TV,” Zavala said. “But it happened.”
The husband and wife successfully delivered their baby, Angie, who was born weighing seven pounds. Officers arrived at the scene three minutes later, and nurses at North Shore-LIJ Huntington Hospital confirmed that Zavala had done a great job, having prepared herself in advance.
“She told us all she wasn’t nervous, because she watched it all on YouTube and knew exactly what to do."
