Having your baby in a hospital foyer is not the most traditional way to give birth, but parents Nicole and Brett Thomas say they wouldn’t have it any other way.
The Williams Landing couple welcomed their third child, Georgia Hope, into the world on Sunday, February 25, at
St Vincent’s Private Hospital in Melbourne.
Mrs Thomas said she and her husband were at home at the weekend when they realised Georgia was on her way.
Mrs Thomas’ mother Debbie began urging them to go to the hospital, so they started the 35-minute drive to the city.
“When we were seven minutes away from the hospital, my waters broke and then we could tell she was really coming,” Mrs Thomas said.
When the couple arrived at the hospital, the receptionist tried to find a wheelchair for Mrs Thomas, while Mr Thomas went outside to lock the car.
When he ran back to the hospital, the doors were locked. Mr Thomas said as he knocked, he could see his wife on her hands and knees in the foyer.
He was let back inside just as their daughter was born at 2.37am.
“Two little pushes and she was in my arms,” he said.
Mrs Thomas said Georgia was born only two or three minutes after they arrived at the hospital, with the whole labour lasting about seven hours.
“I knew I wasn’t going to make it upstairs [to the hospital maternity ward], my instincts definitely took over,” Mrs Thomas said.
“Having my husband catch her was not something I ever expected to experience, I think it’s been a real bonding experience
for him and I, it was very special.
“It wasn’t what I had planned, but I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Georgia weighed 3.680kg when she was born, and is a little sister to Mackenzie, aged five, and Brooklyn, aged two.
