Couple Turns Truck Into Makeshift Birthing Suite

A New Jersey woman delivered her baby "without doctors, nurses, or an epidural" in the front seat of a Ford pickup early Tuesday morning, WABC-TV reports. It probably wasn't part of her birth plan. When Keshia Melchoirre unexpectedly went into labor—the baby wasn't due for more than three weeks—her husband Steve put her in the truck and rushed her to the hospital. "It went from just me breathing hard to screaming in the car," Keshia tells WABC-TV. "I could feel her coming out." They didn't make it to the hospital.

"I was able to pull her right up to my chest, and I put her in my sweatshirt because I didn't have a blanket or anything," Keshia tells WABC-TV. They continued on to the hospital, where staff met them outside to cut the umbilical cord. Fortunately, both mother and new daughter Portia were healthy and had no complications. "It's an absolute miracle," Steve tells WABC-TV. "She did everything. I was just the driver." Keshia says her first child took 10 or 12 hours of labor. This time around it felt closer to 12 minutes. (More New Jersey stories.)