Local Mom Delivers Baby in Family’s Kitchen

ROCK HILL, S.C. – Baby Mia is two weeks old. She is perfect and healthy, after making an early, surprise entrance. “I had been in labor, well, I thought was just plain labor, all night,” says mom Erin Laquidara. A doctor sent Erin home from the hospital the day before. But now, her husband was on his way home from work to take her back. She was in so much pain she couldn’t stand up, and was crawling toward the door. She said, “As I got closer, I’m like, I’m not gonna make it down two flights of stairs, I think you’re gonna have to call 911.”

Next, Erin’s water broke, four weeks before her due date, and she felt baby Mia’s head. She says, “All I kept thinking was my four-year-old (son) was standing right there, watching me, so I’m like, oh my gosh, like, he’s gonna go to school in a little bit and tell everybody he saw a baby being born, but he was just more happy that the firefighters were there, he saw fire trucks!”

Rock Hill Fire Department Station 3 was on the scene, and in Erin’s kitchen-turned-delivery room, in minutes. They took care of Erin and Mia, before they went to the hospital to be checked out.

Firefighters see tragedy all the time. This was the first time these rescuers, Firefighter Josh Parris, Captain Chris Summers, and Lt. Jason Vrooman, helped deliver a baby. Capt. Summers says, “To actually bring a life into the world, and not see a life leave, it was really awesome.”

The first responders had just had OB/GYN training that week. Summers says, “We just do what we’re supposed to do. The training kicks in,” and, “Dad did get to cut the cord in the field.”

Dad Ed Laquidara got home from work just as baby Mia, weighing 6 lbs, 13 oz., entered the world. His “My Wife is a Superhero” t-shirt sums up perfectly how he feels about his spouse. He calls it, “(The) best shirt ever!”

The happy, healthy family stopped by the fire house Friday to say thanks, and give each firefighter a pink stork pin, as a memento of Mia’s birth. Erin says, “They were really great. They took care of us, made sure she was fine.”

Erin says she had no plans to have a home birth. Her mom was with her that morning, making the phone calls to Erin’s husband, and then 911, and helping catch Mia in a towel as she was being born, before the firefighters arrived.