An experienced Phoenix mother gave birth in a car, but not in the way one may assume—she was the one driving.
Shannon Geise’s fifth child was due. Around midnight on Wednesday, Nov. 8, her water broke. She thought she still had a few hours before contractions were to come. So she took a shower and started to pack. But the contractions came earlier—and harder—than she expected.
She jumped into the family’s SUV and was on her way to the Abrazo Scottsdale Campus hospital. Yet, at 1:23 a.m., when Geise was only some five minutes from the hospital, little Sebastian couldn’t wait anymore.
Sebastian was out in about a minute. Geise rubbed his back and he started to cry. She then called 911. Meanwhile, her 17-month-old daughter was watching TV in the back seat.
“They’re like, ‘Do you need an ambulance? Are you going to keep going?’” Geise said. “I was like, ‘Honestly, it would be quicker for me just to go’.”
She drove the rest of the way to the hospital.
“It started from, ‘Am I going to make it in time to get an epidural,’ then it was like, ‘Am I going to make it to the hospital,’ then it was like, ‘I just need to make it there because he was already out’,” Geise said.
The boy was 39 weeks, weighing 6 pounds, 7 ounces. Apart from the dramatic circumstances, he was born without complication. Geise plans to drive him from the hospital herself on Thursday.