'Every Second Mattered': North Shore Mother Shares Story Of Peabody Roadside Delivery

PEABODY, MA — Six weeks later, Lauren Rainville said she is ready to share her amazing story and her overwhelming sense of gratitude toward everyone who contributed to the roadside birth and resuscitation of her daughter, Emily, and the happy ending of a healthy little girl born on the side of Lowell Street in Peabody during a stormy December morning.

"We were dangerously close to the alternative," Rainville revealed in a social media post that she shared with Patch on Tuesday.

It was the rain-swept morning of Dec. 18 when the moment that Lauren and her husband, Andrew, had been preparing so carefully for arrived. But they could never have prepared for what came next as the drive from their Rowley home at Salem Hospital began with intense contractions five minutes apart and soon reached a crisis point as they quickened to one-minute intervals while Andrew weaved through the storm-slowed traffic of the morning commute toward the Route 95 highway offramp.

"It became clear that we were not going to make it to the hospital," she said.

Andrew called 911, pulled over on Lowell Street, and "prepared for imminent delivery" as Peabody police arrived on the scene. Lauren said Sgt. Stephanie Lane held her hand and Capt. Eric Zawacki coached from the backseat as Andrew, who is trained in emergency medicine, delivered Emily and caught her with his bare hands while standing in the pouring rain.

"Andrew and I shared a brief moment of joy in discovering our new baby was a girl, given that we had left her gender to be a surprise at birth," Lauren said. "However, that quickly shifted — as we realized Emily's color started to become progressively more blue and she was still not crying."

With only a couple of towels and no medical supplies, Lauren said the couple and the officers waited for what "felt like hours" during the minutes it took EMS services to arrive.

"The stars had aligned that morning," she said. "Just as paramedic Tyler Merullo thought he was wrapping up his 24-hour shift, he was dispatched to report to one more call. When every second mattered, Tyler made each one of them count.

"His quick decision-making and ability to assume command of the scene is a major reason Emily is alive today."

With Emily's color fading, Lauren mustered the energy to climb out of the car minutes removed from giving birth — with her daughter still attached to the umbilical cord — and she walked a few steps along the side of the road before she was placed on a stretcher with her daughter and they were loaded into an ambulance.

Only once in the ambulance, Merullo was able to resuscitate Emily with Andrew's help, and she "began to pink up" and stabilize during the ride to the hospital.

Upon arrival at Salem Hospital, Lauren and Emily were rushed to a trauma room to receive medical care.

"I couldn't help but feel an even deeper level of respect for what medical professionals do," she said. "They treated us as if we were their own family and I cannot thank the entire Salem Hospital Emergency Department more."

A few hours later, mother, father and daughter were reunited in the Special Care Nursery. Five days later, Emily was discharged in time to be home for the baby's first Christmas.

"The care we received in the Special Care Nursery was incredible," she said. "We are so thankful for all of the doctors and nurses that were part of Emily's team.

"That week at the hospital was incredibly emotional and difficult for our family as we awaited to see if Emily's rocky entrance left her with any long-lasting impacts. We are happy to report that, by some miracle, she has a bright and healthy future ahead of her."

Lauren said that while it will take more time to fully process the trauma of the event "with each passing day I am reminded of how precious life is — the way the stars aligned that morning gave my sweet girl a chance at life.

"Prior to all of this, we decided that if we were to have a girl, her middle name would be Jean — in memoriam to Andrew's late mother, Cynthia Jean Rainville. In hindsight, it only makes sense that she was looking down on all of us and acting as Emily's guardian angel that morning.

"I credit all of the first responders, the staff at Salem Hospital, and most importantly my heroic husband.

"I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for saving my baby girl."

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)