The most common question I get is, why didn’t you name your baby Casey? That’s because I had my daughter, Mia Jo Lynne Bennett, on November 16, 2015, on the floor of a Casey’s General Store bathroom in Moweaqua, IL. When I woke up around 3:30 a.m. that Monday morning to the first telltale labor […]
The post I Gave Birth In a Gas Station Bathroom appeared first on Ultimate FM.
The most common question I get is, why didn’t you name your baby Casey? That’s because I had my daughter, Mia Jo Lynne Bennett, on November 16, 2015, on the floor of a Casey’s General Store bathroom in Moweaqua, IL.
When I woke up around 3:30 a.m. that Monday morning to the first telltale labor pains, I wasn’t too alarmed, even though, the first time I gave birth, my labor was really quick — under four hours.
My fiancé, Brad, was working on the road at the time, so he had left for a town over 150 miles away the night before. I called my mother and grandmother during those early contractions and asked them to come over. My grandmother would sit with my son, then 7, while my mother drove me to the hospital.
My water still hadn’t broken when they arrived, but as I was walking to the car, I had to kneel down in pain in front of my house. The nearest hospital was in Decatur, about 30 miles away, and the pain overrode any anxiety I had about making it in time — I just wanted to get moving.
We had been driving for about a half hour when I finally couldn’t take the crippling contractions anymore and asked my mother to pull over. She turned into a gas station with a little convenience store attached, Casey’s General Store. She stayed in the car while I ran past customers and into the bathroom.
I sat on the toilet immediately because I felt an intense need to go, but with my first push downward I felt myself crowning. I reached down and there was my daughter’s head, dangling over the toilet.
By then, my mother had parked and rounded up help from the employees. She and two female Casey’s staffers came into the bathroom and helped me lie down on some towels they’d found in a back room. My mom was a mess, almost hysterical, so she stayed up by my head while the two ladies — who, I later learned, were named Tonya and Shannon — helped deliver. My mother called my Brad when her head came out, and then again just a minute or so later, when Shannon caught my daughter and wrapped her in an old Casey’s uniform coat they had found.
When the ambulance arrived, I was already nursing the baby. It turned out the three EMTs had never assisted with a birth before, but of course they were trained in what to do and were completely professional. One cut Mia’s cord and then they loaded me onto a stretcher. If there was a crowd of customers and employees around the bathroom, I don’t remember it; all that blood loss and new-baby euphoria will do that to you! I do recall getting wheeled past a crew of employees sitting around the coffee area chatting and sipping from their cups as if they saw this all the time.
The most difficult part of the entire process actually came later. I needed to deliver the placenta, but the EMTs wanted me to wait until I got to the hospital and was in the care of a doctor. By the time we got there, my cervix was no longer dilated so the doctor needed to manually dilate my cervix. It was agonizing.
At least by then, Brad had arrived. He got to the hospital around ten minutes after we did, when Mia was around an hour old. He was totally bummed that he missed the labor, but couldn’t help but feel happy and excited once he met his daughter.
We were really lucky: Mia was a very healthy seven pounds, five ounces, and didn’t experience any complications from her funny delivery. As for me, I lost a lot of blood in the process and the medical team considered a transfusion, but it wasn’t absolutely necessary. I would have had to stay in the hospital more days, and I wanted to be home with my family.
We messaged a few friends and family members to tell them about Mia’s arrival, but I knew the word spread more quickly than usual because random friends started texting me. One of them notified the local news station, and when we went home on Wednesday, we did a little interview right back at Casey’s.
A lot of people joked that the medical bill must have been way cheaper, but I was still in the hospital for two days. To be honest, we paid without looking too closely — nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
We enjoyed a little bit of fame around town — everyone knows about “the Casey’s baby.” Mia is almost a year old, and strangers will comment, “Look how big the Casey’s baby is!” And, like I said, everybody wants to know why we didn’t name her Casey. It never crossed my mind! My son’s teacher even told the class the story. He was really embarrassed at the time, but now he thinks his little sister’s notoriety is pretty cool.
In addition to asking about the same, people want to know what — aside from the (very slightly) less expensive bills and the healthy baby that resulted — the best part of giving birth at Casey’s was. My response is always the same: “Maybe one day, I’ll get to meet Ellen Degeneres!” In the mean time, I would also settle for a lifetime of priority parking at all Casey’s locations.
source: cosmopolitan
The post I Gave Birth In a Gas Station Bathroom appeared first on Ultimate FM.
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