California doctor gives birth to own baby on highway

Santa Rosa, Calif. (KRON/CNN Newsource) – A California doctor’s long experience delivering babies came in very handy recently.

She found herself stuck in heavy traffic on the way to the hospital to give birth to her child.

The new arrival apparently couldn’t wait through rush hour to meet her family.

Victoria Williams said, “Pretty much let nature take its course and it definitely did that.”

Williams is a North Bay doctor who has delivered hundreds of babies but never like this.

Planning for a May Day baby, her due date was pushed up another day.

Last Tuesday she unexpectedly had to deliver her own newborn.

Victoria said, “I got to put my own name on the birth certificate as delivering physician which was pretty cool.”

Her first baby took 20 hours to deliver in their previous home.

This time around, Williams wanted her trusted colleagues at Petaluma Health Center to do the job. They just didn’t make it in time.

Big sister Lena said, “Mommy catched her, like in her lap.”

Fifteen minutes on the road, baby Kainoa was born inside a moving car in rush hour traffic on Highway 101 near Cotati.

Despite the commotion, dad kept his cool and his hands on the wheel – he did slow down but kept driving.

While fifteen minutes into their drive, mom delivered the baby right here in the car’s passenger seat.  And the news – it’s a girl.”

The baby’s father, Adam Williams, said, “And we were in pretty heavy commute traffic so I couldn’t just whip off to the side and pull over so it kind of just happened that way because it was so fast.”

Altogether the delivery only took 40 minutes.

Victoria said, “We weren’t dilly dallying at home. We didn’t take our time. We left within 20 minutes.  We weren’t expecting twenty minutes late to have a baby.”

When asked what she would say to people who wonder how this could happen to a doctor, Victoria replied, “I think the main take home point is that labor can go so many different ways. Nature can give us anything.”

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