Talk about multi-tasking! Most women probably don’t think they’ll forever be known from headlines that read “Mom delivers baby on side of road,” but that’s exactly what this Kentucky mother of five, Heather Skaats, did over the weekend. Kentucky mother of five Heather Skaats gave birth to her sixth child on the side of a road while her other children sat in the car. Thinking her due date was three weeks away, the special delivery came on Sunday.
In a Facebook post, Skaats shared that she was having “light contractions” before she got in the car with her other kiddos, but didn’t think much of it because her due date was still three weeks away and she had long labors with her other children. So off she went to run some errands.
“I thought I wouldn’t have a baby in my arms until eight or ten hours later,” she says.
And then things…took a turn. Her contractions grew more intense and began coming much closer together, which indicates that labor is in action.
Skaats said she started driving faster, in hopes that she could have a home water birth as planned. But it quickly became clear that there wasn’t going to be enough time. “I pulled over — assured the kids that everything was OK — and then I grabbed my phone and got out of the van,” Skaats shared. Skaats said was in a squat position on the ground when her water broke.
She put her hand down there and the baby’s head started coming out with his body . “I didn’t even have to push. It was so quick. I was on the phone with my husband, Nick, and 20 seconds later, I was like, ‘He’s here!’” Skaats was able to catch the little boy, who weighed seven pounds. “He started crying right away, and he just opened his eyes and looked at me and I said, ‘Yeah, buddy that was fun, huh?’” Skaats recalled.
With the baby still attached to her placenta inside her body, Skaats slowly got back into the vehicle where her children, Kaelynn, 13, Aneleigh, 11, Austin, 6, Luke, 3, and Alyssa, 2, were eager to meet their new sibling. Skaats and her husband are also parents to Leilah, who died of cancer when she was 4 in 2016.“I wrapped him in a blanket and drove with him close to my chest,” Skaats said. “I think the kids were in shock. They were pretty quiet.” Once they finally got to the house, Skaats delivered her placenta in the shower, with help from her 13-year-old daughter, Kaelynn. Soon after, Skaat’s midwife arrived.
“We had to pick the grass off him,” Skaats shared.
“I’m still in shock that I delivered my own baby on the side of the road,” Kaats says. “But he is perfect, all of the kids are happy to have him here, and today was a day I will never forget.”
She notes that her husband was disappointed about missing the birth of his sixth child, but he did get to be on the phone when she called him right before delivering him. “I was literally just out in the barn feeding horses 20 minutes before he came out,” she says. “It was that fast. And no, he still doesn’t have a name. Have to keep that tradition alive!”
Though the little boy may not have a name just yet, Kaats says her son Austin came up with the perfect nickname: The Flash.
Congrats to the Kaats family and its newest member—a family legend was born. Figuratively and literally!