Kids A2Z - Yolandi Myers
“I delivered in the back seat of my car.”
Yolandi Myers’ first pregnancy had gone well, no complications and minimal discomfort. She had every reason to believe her delivery would go just as smoothly.
So she took it in stride when her obstetrician, Dr. Julian Peskin, told her she had begun to dilate at 35 weeks. It wasn’t unusual, he said, but she might feel some discomfort the following day.
Myers went to work, came home and went out to dinner. “I was uncomfortable, but I wasn’t in pain,” she recalls.
After a restless night, though, she realized she was in labor. The doctor on call recommended she come in once her contractions had been five minutes apart for two to three hours.
“After just eight contractions, we couldn’t time anymore because they were right on top of each other,” Myers says. “I started freaking out.”
Still, Myers had the impulse to go back inside for a towel before she and husband Jason, an amateur race car driver, got in the car for the 30-mile trip to Hillcrest Hospital from their Copley home. Even with Jason pushing their Audi A4 past 120 mph, they weren’t going to make it. About seven minutes from the hospital, Myers couldn’t wait.
“I remember saying, ‘I’m having this baby with my next contraction, so get as close to the ER as you can,’ ” she says. Seconds later, Sienna was born in the back seat, bluish and silent.
The Myerses arrived at Hillcrest and were immediately surrounded by a medical team. They cleared Sienna’s airway, still full of amniotic fluid and mucus, which brought the sound Myers had been waiting for — the cries of a healthy, breathing newborn.
Sienna spent just two days in Hillcrest’s neonatal intensive care unit then went home with her parents without any complications from her back seat arrival. She’s now a healthy, thriving 2-year-old with a new baby sister on the way.
“I wish I had called the doctor that day and told him what I was feeling,” Myers says. “I think this time I’ll be more aware of what’s happening to my body.”
