Midwife Delivers Her Own Child: ‘She Pulled The Baby Out Herself’

FRANKFORT, KY — Emily Dial has delivered a lot of babies during her career as a midwife. When she was ready to birth her third child, the central Kentucky woman didn’t deliver the baby the old-fashioned natural way. The birth was by Caesarean section.

You might think it was an emergency birth. It wasn't. Dial had the whole thing planned out at Frankfort Regional Medical Center on Sunday. Dial got some help with the incision from the hospital’s medical team, but “pulled the baby out herself,” according to the Facebook post of a photographer who documented the birth.

Photographer Sarah Hill met Dial three years ago when she was pregnant. Dial delivered her son, and they became good friends.

“As soon as she found out she was expecting, she asked me to photograph the birth,” Hill told LoveWhatMatters. “She told me told me she planned on pulling the baby out of herself during her planned C-section and of course, I was all for it.”

Dial called the birth of her daughter “truly a full circle moment.”

“It was tying together the two things I love the most: my family and my career,” she told LoveWhatMatters. “It truly was one of the happiest moments of my life.”

Two obstetricians, Dr. Mark Wainwright and Dr. Amanda Hess, assisted with the birth, but Dial lifted the baby from her abdomen on her own.

“I felt so supported by everyone in the room,” Dial told CafeMom. My physicians are not only my colleagues but my friends, which made it all the more special. Even more, not knowing the baby’s gender before the birth made the experience all the more monumental."

As a midwife, Dial knew that she couldn’t break the sterile field, “but I wanted to kiss her sooo bad!”

“I kept putting her down on my abdomen, but kept wanting more!” she told CafeMom. “That’s why you see me set her down, then bring her back up several times.”

Hill said the support among Dial and her colleagues was an amazing thing to watch.

"This was by far one of the most incredible days of my life ... It was unreal. To say that she is amazing, is an understatement. She was meant to bring babies into this world and didn’t let a little thing like a C-Section stop her from delivering her own!" Hill added on Facebook. "To watch her colleagues rally around her and make this happen was so beautiful. It was truly an honor to be there and capture this for her."

The delivery, which Dial called “flawless,” took 10 minutes from start to finish. The baby was in the right position.

Dial and her husband, Daniel, have named their baby Emma Kaye. She weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces, and is Dial’s third thild. They have have a daughter, 4, but their son Grayson, was born with a serious birth defect and died 10 days later.

Dial lives in Lawrenceburg and is a midwife-nurse practitioner at Women’s Care of the Bluegrass.

Photo via Shutterstock