Incredible Moment: Mom Of 5 Gives Birth in Moving Car
Alexis Swinney always dreamed of having an intimate setting for a birth — but she never thought when it finally happened, it would be in the front seat of a moving vehicle!
On the morning of September 5, Alexis knew her baby girl was going to arrive. She had spent all night coping with increasing labor pains, so she and her husband, Dominque, began planning for the big day. The couple dropped off their 7-year-old daughter at school and packed their three young sons into the family SUV to visit Alexis’ midwife before heading to the hospital.
Yet, as Alexis was checked over my her midwife, they discovered she was already seven centimeters dilated — which meant the baby was coming a lot sooner than she expected.
“I was in so much pain. Once we got into the car, I was just trying to make it,” Alexis, 24, tells PEOPLE. “I know my husband kept telling me we were almost there. I was thinking, ‘Okay, let’s try to stay alive and control this pain right here.’ ”
Alexis began screaming in the front seat as Dominique did he his best to drive her the 15 minutes from the nurse’s office to the hospital as quickly as he could.
“I wasn’t nervous at all about the car moving because I honestly didn’t feel it moving,” Alexis recalls. “My husband wasn’t driving crazy. I told him to drive a little fast, but to make sure we were safe!”
But as they approached the hospital, Alexis soon realized they weren’t going to make it in time.
“The minute my water broke, I knew she was coming,” Alexis, who asked her husband to record the birth as it was happening, recalls. “Once her head started to come out, I got scared because I thought it was a butt — I hadn’t prepared for that. I haven’t done my research on breech births, so I panicked. But then I felt her little ear, then I pulled her out!”
Meanwhile, the couple’s 3-year-old twins and their 4-year-old brother all looked on in awe as their newest sibling arrived in front of them.
“They all three stayed completely silent — I’m not sure who saw what, but we didn’t tell them to not look or anything. It definitely wasn’t on my mind!” Alexis says, adding that she had previously planned to let the kids watch the birth at the hospital.
“My 4-year-old was actually patting my face with a blanket that was at his feet. And both our 3-year-olds first reactions were to smile, and they both said ‘baby!’ ” she adds.
The footage of the dramatic birth was later posted to the family’s Instagram page, and in it, Alexis is seen lovingly cradling her baby girl, whom they named Corbyn Hope, just moments after welcoming her into the world.
“Right after I had her, I caught my breath at the stoplight, and I turned around and I sat down and I told my husband he could slow down, that we were all fine,” she says. “It was honestly one of the most amazing things I have ever done, it was something I had always prayed about, having a birth that is uninterrupted. It was really cool to have my baby with my husband next to me and our kids in the backseat.”
Today, baby Corbyn Hope is happy and healthy and hanging out with her four other siblings. After hearing about the family’s story, Jimmy Kimmel gifted the family a new van, a step up from their increasingly crowded SUV. Now the Swinneys are using a GoFundMe to help pay off the remaining balance on their SUV, which they plan to give to another family in need.
