Baby Onyx was coming — ready or not!
In the wee hours of a busy shift, a PeaceHealth nurse just happened to be nearby to help expectant parents in their SUV outside the hospital.
It was the wee hours of Aug. 11. Expectant parents China Lim and Parker Brodale pulled up to the doors of PeaceHealth's hospital in Springfield, Oregon.
But by then they knew their little one wasn’t going to wait until they got inside.
Thanks to a series of lucky breaks, they weren’t alone in welcoming their son, Onyx, into the world.
House supervisor Jenn Salter, MSN, RN, just happened to be in her office for the first time during her shift when the phone rang.
An emergency room charge nurse asked her to check on a mom about to give birth outside the building entrance near Salter’s office.
“A voice inside my head said, ‘run,’” Salter recalled. “I got to the sliding glass doors and sure enough, there was a small SUV there. The dad was clearly relieved to see me.”
Lim was in the front seat. The baby was coming — ready or not.
“I thought, oh, boy, we are literally having a baby right now,” Salter said. “There was really no stopping at this point. I told mom, ‘I got you, and we’ll get through this together.’”
She put on the clean gloves she had stashed in her pocket an hour earlier. Salter was a doula earlier in her career, so this wasn’t her first time delivering a baby. But it was her first time doing it solo.
She leaned on her training. A couple of pushes later, and Onyx was out. “It was one of those textbook deliveries minus it being in the front seat of a car,” Salter said.
Everyone was healthy with no complications. And Salter handed the baby to his mom to hold against her chest.
Moments later, staff from the emergency room arrived to help. Brodale even got to cut the umbilical cord in the front seat of the SUV before the family was admitted to the hospital’s labor and delivery unit.
Lim had been so focused on the baby that she wasn’t really nervous, she said later. But she was grateful for Salter’s experience and calming energy.
“We were both glad to have her there and that it wasn’t just my partner having to do it himself,” Lim said. Especially after a “very unrelaxing car ride.”
Salter also felt fortune’s hand at play that night. “The stars aligned,” she said. “I feel like I was meant to be there for them. I’m glad I listened to that voice.”
Page photo provided courtesy of the family: Atlas with baby brother Onyx and mom in the hospital
