Kinsley Jane’s birth is a story her parents will be telling for the rest of her life.
The six-pound, 13-ounce girl was born early Thursday morning, the day after the anniversary of the death of her maternal great-grandmother, who she was partially named after.
Her parents consider that aspect of her timing blessed, but it’s another part of her birth that they consider even more incredible.
When contractions woke Amanda Stuparyk up around 4 a.m. on Thursday, she woke her partner Jason Mudryk.
Amanda Stuparyk, left, and Jason Mudryk, right, sit with four-year-old son Clifton and days-old daughter Kinsley. (CTV News Edmonton / Miriam Valdes-Carletti)
Stuparyk’s pain intensified quickly.
“My contractions were on top of each other. I just thought I was having really intense labour,” Stuparyk recalled during a recent interview with CTV News Edmonton.
As was their plan, the couple called their parents who were going to watch their four-year-old son Clifton and started the 30-minute drive from Fort Saskatchewan to Royal Alexandra Hospital in Edmonton.
“She was making it very clear that she was in quite a bit of discomfort and felt the baby was coming,” Mudryk said, smiling.
“I was not quite believing her,” he admitted. Stuparyk laughed.
“She was coming,” Stuparyk said.
The couple was near NAIT, several blocks north of the hospital, when they realized how greatly they had underestimated the situation..
“We had no time. Absolutely no time. No control over it at all. She was coming right then and there. I remember just telling him, ‘Pull over. Right now. You gotta pull over,'” Stuparyk told CTV News Edmonton.
A 911 operator sent emergency responders to where they had stopped on 101 Street and 117 Avenue and talked them through the delivery.
Street signs of 101 Street and 117 Avenue in Edmonton.
“I put my feet up on the dash and literally gave birth to her, seated in my car,” Stuparyk said.
“When I got around the car and realized this was happening now, I got in the zone a little bit,” Mudryk recalled. “Pretty sure my heart was not even on the scales. It was hurting so bad, it was beating out of my chest.”
“We don’t know the exact time she was born. We’re estimating from the 911 call to when they got there,” Mudryk chuckled. “So we think it’s 5:40 but it’s between that range of 5:35 and 5:40 in the morning.”
Adding to the excitement was the appearance that Kinsley Jane had been born in an “orb.”
“I remember he said it looked very strange,” Stuparyk said.
Kinsley had entered the world in her amniotic sac.
“I had to actually take it off of her and scoop out her mouth and rub her back. And then she cried and that was a beautiful sound at that point because that was very scary,” Stuparyk told CTV News Edmonton.
“My poor car. We just got that car, too.”
WHAT TO DO
More than a dozen emergency responders were at the scene within minutes and helped to keep the new baby and mom warm.
They also helped Mudryk cut Kinsley’s umbilical cord, using a twist tie in the absence of a proper clamp.
Later, Stuparyk and Mudryk would be given the tie in a little container labelled, “Baby’s first twist tie.”
Emergency responders helped Jason Mudryk clamp his daughter’s umbilical cord with a twist tie, then later gave it to him and mom Amanda Stuparyk. (CTV News Edmonton / Miriam Valdes-Carletti)
On their way home from the hospital, they stopped at 101 Street and 117 Avenue for a picture.
Days later, the experience was still surreal.
“I’m in shock about the fact that she was born there,” Stuparyk told her partner, who joked, “Not a glamorous corner, by the Polish super centre.”
Stuparyk is recovering well and looks forward to telling her daughter her birth story.
“Hopefully she doesn’t give us too many scars like this but I’m assuming she’ll give us a few more throughout her life, if this is any indication of how she’s going to be,” Kinsley’s dad said.
Both Kinsley’s arrival en route to the hospital and en caul – in her amniotic sac – are rare, according to the president of the Alberta Association of Midwives.
“In a lot of traditional cultures and myths, [an en caul birth] is actually considered good luck,” Marita Obst told CTV News Edmonton.
“It sounds like they did exactly the right thing.”
She advises parents prepare for an unexpected birth by keeping warm blankets and a bulb syringe in their vehicle.
If a birth happens en route, she said:
- stop in a safe place;
- call 911 and your midwife if you have one;
- stay calm;
- catch, don’t pull, the baby;
- keep the baby’s cord intact rather than cutting it with something unsanitary; and
- follow the instructions from the professionals you have on the phone.
“Typically if a birth is going that fast, usually it means that most of the time everything is well,” Obst said. “That baby just has a plan to come as quickly as possible, which means usually they’re not in a whole lot of distress. So just know that your body can do what it needs to do.”
Mudryk and Stuparyk also offered their own advice.
“Just play it safe and go. Go to the hospital if you think she’s got contractions. Don’t think about it,” he said.
His partner added: “If she tells you to pull over, pull over.”
With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Miriam Valdes-Carletti
Denial of responsibility! My Droll is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
