Dads Deliver 2 Babies in 2 Separate Lots Just Minutes Apart

Erin Peeple could see her baby’s backside as her husband, Jordon, steered their car into a church parking lot in Grand Rapids Saturday morning and steeled himself to the reality that he would have to deliver their son, and the Pontiac G8 sports sedan would be his operating amphitheater.

Those weren’t the only things about the impending birth that were out of the ordinary. The baby was four weeks premature and was coming breech to boot.

The couple had left their Green Lake area home 10 minutes earlier, and were still several minutes away from the downtown Grand Rapids hospital when Erin, 31, sounded the alarm.

“The baby is right here,” she remembers saying, recalling the urgent, dramatic birth of Cam Edward Lee Peeple in an interview with The Grand Rapids Press/MLive.

By the time Jordon, 26, parked the car in the Corinth Reformed Church’s lot, “the baby was out,” he said.

It was 10:05 a.m.

‘Good Start to the Morning’

At about the same time little Cam made his unscheduled appearance, another couple made an emergency stop in another church parking lot about 10 miles away.

The birth in a Byron Center church parking lot was more routine, and by the time Cutlerville firefighter/paramedics arrived to assist about 10 a.m., Dad had placed the newborn on Mom’s chest and was getting instructions from a dispatcher via cell phone, according to The Grand Rapids Press/MLive story.

There was little for them to do but congratulate the new parents.

“We finished up with cutting the cord,” firefighter Jordan Sheely told the newspaper. “Everybody was healthy, so it was a good start to the morning.”

Like Jordon and Erin Peeple, the couple, who weren’t identified in the report, were on their way to the hospital when Mom’s labor pains quickened. The couple activated the OnStar navigation system on their car and emergency personnel were dispatched.

Baby Didn’t Cry or Breathe

Over in the Corinth Reformed Church parking lot in Grand Rapids, things weren’t going so well for the Peeples.

The silence was deafening in those first few minutes after the tiny 4 pound, 3 ounce infant made his appearance. He didn’t cry, and his parents couldn’t feel his breath.

Jordon rubbed his newborn son’s back, coaxing him to breathe.

Finally, the infant cried.

“It was definitely a relief,” Erin said.

Summoned by OnStar as well, an American Medical Response dispatcher relayed instructions to Jordon on how to tie off the umbilical cord with a shoelace. He fumbled some, but finally accomplished the task before help arrived.

Because Cam was so small and was born under less than ideal circumstances, his parents prepared themselves for what might be an extended hospital stay. But Erin and Cam were released Monday.

“You think about all the things that could have went wrong with delivering in a car, delivering a breech baby and a preemie baby at that,” Erin said. “He’s proved a lot of people wrong. He’s beaten a lot of odds, that’s for sure. We’re happy.”

» See a photo gallery of baby Cam on The Grand Rapids Press/MLive.

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Photo via Shutterstock