This birth happened in the car, beside an apple orchid, en route to the hospital. It was golden hour in the morning with ᴍᴇʟᴛɪɴɢ dew on the grass. The father and older sibling were also in the car, and all were overjoyed and ᴄᴀʟᴍ ᴜᴘᴏɴ the quick and safe arrival.
Corinne started to feel the first ᴘᴀɪɴs around three o’clock in the morning. Around six o’clock she took a shower, and then everything went sᴍᴏᴏᴛʜʟʏ. “I thought I had more time,” she recalls in an interview with the Daily Mail Australia. “After a phone call with a doula, I grabbed my things, called my friend and birth photographer Breanna, my husband woke up my son, and we sᴇᴛ ᴏꜰꜰ.”
However, they did not reach the ᴍᴀᴛᴇʀɴɪᴛʏ ᴡᴀʀᴅ. During the half-hour journey, the ʟᴀʙᴏʀ went so far that they had to stop, and Corinne gave birth right in the front seat of the car. “Suddenly I felt a ʜᴇᴀᴅᴀᴄʜᴇ; I was sʜᴏᴄᴋᴇᴅ and surprised at the same time. There was suddenly no time for anything. My husband immediately stopped, ran out of the car, opened the door for me to give me more room, and then Matilda was born. I didn’t have time to move to the back seat, and I didn’t even realize at that moment that I was giving birth in the car.”
Photographer Breanna Gravener did not ʜᴇsɪᴛᴀᴛᴇ and recorded the whole event. “It was so fast that I missed the first picture of Matilda by a second before I went around the car,” she recalls. “It was all natural; nobody was sᴛʀᴇssᴇᴅ, and we were all happy.”
Corinna’s husband then called the ᴍᴀᴛᴇʀɴɪᴛʏ hospital, and the whole team moved there as quickly as possible so that the doctors could ᴛʀᴇᴀᴛ both mother and daughter. “It was only after I saw the photos that I realized how it all happened and that I could ᴄᴀʟᴍʟʏ recall it. The pictures are beautiful,” Corinne praises herself.
Breanna captured such an amazing experience in such a beautiful way! The angles she chooses to capture this story are thoughtful and creative; the colors are beautiful, and the story is amazing.
The photos of her “car birth” were then published by Breanna, with Corinne’s ᴘᴇʀᴍɪssɪᴏɴ, on thebirthstory.com.au, where the whole story generated a great ᴡᴀᴠᴇ of reactions and congratulations. Many moms who had experienced a similarly quick birth came forward and agreed that they were all equally surprised at how intuitively they behaved, how ᴄᴀʟᴍ they were, and how everything actually went incredibly smoothly. “I would never have believed that childbirth could happen so quickly if it hadn’t happened to me,” adds Corinne.
