It’s a tale as old as (modern) time: sometimes a newborn is just so anxious to enter the world that he or she refuses to wait to get to the hospital to be born.
A Florida-based photographer was able to capture the moment a father delivered his newborn son in the front seat of the car.
Stephanie Knowles, who specializes in newborn and family portraits, happened to be following Jacksonville couple Noah and Lauren Strunk on their way to the hospital to deliver their second child, US Weekly reported.
Despite going into labor, the multitasking mom found the time to text Knowles, who has been the family photographer for years, as she waited for a babysitter to arrive to watch the couple’s 3-year-old son, Harrison. As fate would have it, Knowles decided to meet the Strunks at their home instead of at the hospital.
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Once they got there, Noah Strunk missed the turn for the emergency room, prompting his wife to tell him to put the car in park right then.
Noah Strunk was able to make it to the passenger side of the car just in the nick of time.
“I said to Noah, ‘You have to catch this baby right now!’” Lauren Strunk said. “And he did!”
Photos show the happy mother smiling down at her newborn son while still sitting in the car. Another photo shows Noah Strunk looking at his wife and new son in astonishment.
Little Parker was “calm” as he lied on his mother, Knowles wrote on Facebook.
“In the wildness of all that happened this was such a quiet moment in the car, so peaceful,” she said.
Despite her line of work – photographing babies on a regular basis – has never taken photos of a live birth before, she wrote.
“Parker was born so fast that his dad had to literally catch him after his shoulders emerged,” she wrote. “What is so powerful to me is his mother, out of instinct, grabbed [the baby] by the arm after she delivered him. She doesn’t even recall doing it.”
Once Parker was home, he immediately began bonding with older brother Harrison, said Lauren Strunk, who posted an adorable photo of the 3-year-old holding his new brother.
“Harrison has been amazing,” Lauren Strunk said. “He loves baby parker already so much.”
Knowles was able to document the birth on her camera as Lauren’s mother, who was also following the couple in her own car, ran to the hospital entrance to summon help. Parker was born just two or three minutes after Knowles had exited her car, she told NBC News.
Lauren Strunk said she and her husband “felt so grateful” that Knowles was there to take the extraordinary photos.
“We were both in awe of the moment that was captured for us, joy, amazement, but mostly LOVE,” she said.
Noah Strunk said the couple decided to call their newborn “Parker” as an “ode” to his birthplace.
(H/T: US Weekly)
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