An Unexpected Delivery

Story by Kettering Health Staff

When WDTN morning news anchor Lauren Wood and her husband, Nathan, learned they were expecting their second child, they hoped the delivery would go more smoothly than it had with their daughter, Lydia.

They never imagined that Lauren would give birth to their “Sweet Baby James” in a parking garage.

An Exhausting Precedent

Lauren had hoped for a natural childbirth with Lydia. But when she went three days overdue, her obstetrician, Dr. Jennifer Mittlestead, had her come to the office for an ultrasound to test the baby’s health. The results of the ultrasound, along with the gestational diabetes Lauren developed earlier in the pregnancy, made an induction necessary. Dr. Mittlestead said they needed to schedule it for that same day.

Lauren trusted her doctor’s decision. “My OB is actually a really good friend of mine,” Lauren says. “Jenny and I were sorority sisters in college.”

Still wanting a natural birth, “I tried to do the whole Pitocin thing without an epidural,” Lauren says. Eight hours later, she still wasn’t dilating. “My body was so tense from the contractions being so crazy strong.” Once she accepted the epidural, she dilated quickly.

“I was worn out from the Pitocin contractions, and then I couldn’t feel anything—like when to push,” she says. Dr. Mittlestead wound up having to vacuum the baby out. 

“I was so exhausted that I was kind of delirious,” Lauren continues. “It felt like the opposite of what I had hoped for. But she came, and she was healthy, and I was just so grateful.”

A Family Tradition Continues

During Lauren’s second pregnancy, when the couple learned their expected child was a boy, they knew what their son’s name would be: James Nathan.

“My family tradition is the first name of the father becomes the middle name of the eldest son,” Nathan says. Lauren and Nathan chose James as their son’s first name in memory of Lauren’s late father, who went by the nickname Jim.

An optometrist by profession, Jim was a lifelong motor enthusiast who loved tinkering in his garage. He and Nathan shared an affinity for Corvettes, and Jim’s favorite car was the C2 Corvette 427. Though he never owned one, Jim was known for saying, “Four twenty-seven, baby!” Lauren even mentioned it in his eulogy.

Throughout James’s pregnancy, Lauren and Nathan were often saddened by the fact that their son would not grow up knowing Jim. Six months after Lauren and Nathan married, Lauren’s father was diagnosed with stage four glioblastoma. He passed away in 2015.

A Second Chance for a Natural Birth

With James, Lauren wanted to try again for a natural childbirth. “They told me early in the pregnancy that I would not be allowed to go past 40 weeks because I had gestational diabetes again, and this time I was officially old—36.”

But Lauren and Nathan’s faith runs strong. In fact, Nathan is the associate pastor of worship arts at Washington Heights Baptist Church.

“I spent the whole second half of my pregnancy praying that James would come on his own,” Lauren says. “Nathan thinks next time I should be more specific.”

As Lauren’s due date approached, an induction was scheduled for Friday, April 28.

Ever hopeful, on Wednesday—two days before the planned induction—Lauren reread a natural childbirth book she had from Lydia’s pregnancy but never got a chance to put into practice. She also, in consultation with Dr. Mittlestead, tried some natural ways of inducing labor.

Thursday morning, while doing more childbirth research, Lauren came across a YouTube video of a mother who didn’t make it to the hospital in time with her fourth child. As the woman talked about her experience, she mentioned that she had put a garbage bag and towel in the front seat just in case. She had also worn a dress for modesty.

Thursday afternoon, Lauren went into labor.

“I had gone to get a pedicure because I’d resigned myself to having the induction and thought at least I’ll have pretty toes while I’m pushing,” Lauren says. But she’d also heard that sometimes pedicures could bring on labor.

Almost as soon as the pedicure began, she felt contractions. “I started timing them, thinking they were probably Braxton Hicks. About halfway through the pedicure, I realized they were real.”

She texted Nathan, telling him to get their bag ready, but thought they had time for her to shower and get something to eat before going to the hospital. When she got home, the contractions were stronger, and by the time she got out of the shower they were so strong that she needed Nathan’s help to get dressed.

“I had this weird dichotomy in my brain, because on one hand I’m thinking I’ve got eight more hours of this, but on the other hand, I have that lady’s video in the back of my brain. And I’m thinking, if it happens on the way to the hospital, we want to be ready.”

She asked Nathan to help her into a maxi dress and told him to put a trash bag and a towel in the passenger seat. As they were walking out of the house, Lauren thought she should text her doctor to let Jenny know what was happening, but she didn’t know where her phone was. 

They set off for Kettering Health Main Campus. 

An Intense Drive

On their way to the medical center, Lauren’s water broke.

“We were probably 30 seconds away from the hospital, and I felt his head,” she says.

At that point, says Nathan, “I will neither confirm nor deny how many traffic laws I broke.”

When they reached Kettering Health Main Campus, they went to the parking garage. Having no frame of reference for how quickly her labor was progressing, they thought they had time to park the car and call the switchboard for someone to meet them with a wheelchair.

They entered the garage and went down a level, where they found a whole empty row by the wall. Lauren told him to park there. He said, “I can’t park there—that’s physician parking only.”

“With all the traffic laws he broke, I didn’t think he’d mind parking in a physician spot,” Lauren says, laughing.

“I guess God gave us a whole row of spots,” says Nathan. They pulled into the physicians’ row.

Nathan set his phone to speaker and called the main switchboard, who connected them with the security dispatcher. While they waited for the security and OB teams to arrive, Lauren got out of the car.

 There was no more time to wait.

“He’s coming!” she said. “He’s coming right now!”

“Sir, please don’t hang up,” the dispatcher said.

Lauren remembered from the book she’d read the day before, that one of the best positions for childbirth is standing while holding on to something. She grabbed the handle above the passenger door and pushed. “It was so easy,” she says. “Everything was just perfect.”

Nathan shouted, hoping someone was within earshot. “Can someone please help us?” But no one answered. 

“It was do or die then, for me,” he says. “I grabbed the towel—and there he was.”

The dispatcher’s voice came from Nathan’s phone. “Sir? Sir, are you still there?”

“I have a baby in my arms.”

An answered Prayer . . . And a Moment of Grace

When asked if Nathan and Lauren were scared during the birth, Nathan says, “I didn’t have time to be scared. I didn’t have time to really think—I just did–and caught the baby.”

“When my water broke and I could feel his head, I was not scared,” Lauren says. “I guess I should have been. But I was happy that he was coming on his own, and I had kind of a supernatural peace about me that could have come only from God. I think maybe it’s because I had prayed so much for James to come on his own. So knowing that prayer was being answered, I had a real peace about me. I was definitely yelling in pain—but there was also peace.”

As soon as Lauren got back in the car, she asked Nathan to take a picture. 

“It sounded so crazy to say that in that moment,” Lauren admits. “But I wanted to make sure we remembered this and have proof because it’s so unbelievable.”

Nathan tried calling out again for help—and this time a man came running from a few aisles away. He said, “I’m a doctor. I haven’t delivered a baby in 40 years, but I can check him out if you want.”

“We didn’t get his name,” Lauren says. “I’d love to thank him because he was a very comforting presence. He rubbed James and got him to cry for us, then laid him on my chest.” The two of them were still attached by the placenta, which was delivered when they got upstairs in Labor & Delivery.

A Message From Above

Lauren and Nathan believe they received a reminder of God’s compassion during James’s birth: a special connection between Jim and James that the two will forever share, and that Lauren and Nathan feel came straight from God.

“Jim never got to meet his grandson this side of heaven,” Nathan says, “but right as he was born, I looked up when I was calling for help, and saw ‘C2’ [marking the level where they had parked their car].

“I thought, ‘What the. . . ?’ 

“It was a nice little coincidence, but also kind of a message from God. James was born on April 27 (4/27) on Level C2 of the parking garage. He’s a 4/27 baby.”

All is Well

When the on-duty obstetrician, Dr. Dale Drollinger (“Doctor D.”), arrived on the scene with his team, he laughed at how well everything had turned out. He said it could not have gone any better. 

“His demeanor was so reassuring and made us feel confident that everything was OK,” Lauren says.

And when Nathan apologized to Dr. D. for parking in the Physicians Only row, the doctor replied, 

“You did that job today.”