A woman about to rush off to hospital was forced to give birth on her in-laws’ Port Coquitlam driveway last week after being sent home by doctors.
On Monday, Aug. 3, Frédérique Grignon said she awoke to pain as contractions began to settle into a rhythm.
“I just knew it wasn’t false labour. I knew something was happening,” she said.
So Grignon and her partner headed to Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster. But when they got there, staff said it wasn’t time yet. They gave her some drugs for the pain, and after 45 minutes, sent her home.
“They said, ‘We’ll probably see you in four to five hours,” said Grignon.
Living in Pitt Meadows, the couple decided to go to her in-laws in Port Coquitlam to shorten the trip back.
But the pain came on again stronger this time, and a bath did little to dull it, she said. Grignon called the hospital again, but she remembers them saying, “Ah, it’s probably nothing.”
Soon Grignon was lying on the bedroom floor of the Port Coquitlam home, expecting that the family was going to have to deliver the baby.
“I was freaking out. I thought the baby was coming out,” she said.
About 10 minutes later, the paramedics arrived. They broke her water and Grignon was walked down a few flights of stairs to the door. The contractions were coming hard and fast as they walked her to a stretcher at the doorstep.
“As soon as we got outside, I said, ‘Nope, this baby is coming right now,” she said. “[The paramedics] were like, ‘It’s going to happen here.’”
Lying on the stretcher in the driveway, Grignon’s partner holding her hand over her shoulder, she remembers little of the family around her taking pictures and shooting video.
What she does remember: two pushes and the arrival of a baby boy, Loki.
Over a week into his life, Grignon said it’s going “pretty good” and that he sleeps well through the night.
“It was definitely not what we had planned,” she said with a hushed laugh.
“His entry into the world was dramatic, but he’s not as dramatic out here.”
