KALAMAZOO, Mich.—It’s a story Heather and Eric Hayner of Kalamazoo will be sharing with not just one, but two kids, the female twins who weren't willing to wait for a trip to the hospital but were born right outside mom's front door.
“By the time we got out to the car, shortly after, I made the realization they were going to come now,” said Heather.
The Hayners' new motto is now "A little dirt never hurt anyone." The twins were born within 40 minutes from the time her water broke. Heather was on her way to her car when she realized that her baby girls were coming right then and there, whether she liked it or not.
“Finally, my husband was like, ‘Should I call 911?’ I was like, ‘No.’" said Heather. "Then what felt like seconds later, I am like ‘Yes, call 911 right now. They are going to come right now.'”
Heather has a history of having quick deliveries. Both of her sons were born within two hours of the beginning of labor, but even those lightening-fast deliveries didn't prepare her for what happened Wednesday morning. While she was about to get into her van, she realized she couldn’t. She sat down on a patch of grass next to her car and she had the first of the twins right there.
“I realized the choice was out of my hands,” said Hayner.
Heather’s husband Eric, normally a calm, cool, and collected type of a guy, was panicking Wednesday morning. He quickly swallowed his nerves when 911 dispatch said he had to deliver the babies.
“I was freaking out," he said. "You don't anticipate delivering your own child. I knew Heather had quick deliveries, but I didn't know it was going to be anywhere near that quick."
But that wasn’t the part that scared him the most.
“I was nervous to leave her when dispatch said to go and find a shoe string and to cut the umbilical cord. I was thinking the next one was going to come out."
Edie Irene was the first baby to be born, and by the time Avery Mey was ready, resicue units had arrived. The twins were seven weeks early, weighing in at about four pounds.
The Hayners aren’t able to take the twins home from the hospital just yet.
"They are doing really well," said Eric. "But they have three things that they need to kind of master before they can come home. They need to be breathing on their own, which they are, and maintain their body temperature, which they are. We just need to work on their feeding."
The delivery took the Hayners for a scare, but their worries have been relieved.
Well, almost.
“The girls are worrisome to me. I grew up with two brothers, and we have two boys, so I’m not sure how to raise two girls, but we'll figure it out!”
The family said that the doctors originally said their girls would have to be in the hospital for seven weeks until their original due date around Oct. 17, but they have since been told they might be able to take them home earlier.
