Rigby Woman Gives Birth In Car, Feet From EIRMC

Imagine you’re pregnant, on the way to the hospital in the middle of the night, thinking you just might not make it.

Then you don’t.

On Thursday, one Rigby mom had to deliver her own baby in her car.

“I woke up having a contraction, and I had four in a row in a half an hour so I was thinking, ‘I need to wake up my husband,'” said Melissa Thompson.

She did wake her husband Brandon, and they bolted out the front door of their rigby home just after one in the morning. Their destination was Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls.

“We weren’t in that big of a hurry initially you know?” said dad Brandon Thompson. “We thought, ‘who gives birth to a baby in 40 minutes?'”

That’s about how long it took. As the couple raced down the highway, and countryside flew past, Melissa’s contractions kept coming one after another.

“Do I dare say how fast he was going?” said Melissa

She did, but we’ll just say really fast. So were those contractions.

“Turning on to Sunnyside, her head was out.”

All of a sudden, at the corner of Sunnyside Ave. and Channing Way, only a few hundred feet from EIRMC, baby McKenna was ready to get it over with. Brandon pulled over, and on the side of the road, she just decided it was time.

“I caught her, and I pulled her up,” said Melissa. “Our purple, slimy baby in the car, by myself.”

Brandon managed to pull into EIRMC after Melissa gave birth to little McKenna, where nurses came to the car to cut the umbilical cord and attend to Melissa.

Back home, the day feels like ages ago. Purple and slimy no more, McKenna is fast asleep.