UPDATE: Baby’s birth happened so fast, there was no time to get to Penticton hospital, dad says

PENTICTON – A Penticton father whose baby was born earlier this week at her home on Wilson Avenue says the birth happened so fast, there was no time to get to the hospital.

The baby’s father, Chris Davies, said today his new daughter is breathing on her own after having experienced difficulties at Penticton Regional Hospital, early in the morning on Feb. 28.

She and her mother were airlifted to Children’s Hospital in Vancouver where staff are conducting tests and monitoring the baby’s condition.

Police received an interrupted 911 call around 11:20 p.m. Feb. 27, and upon calling back heard a woman saying she was having a baby. Police responded to the address just after the infant was born.

Mother and daughter were taken by paramedics to Penticton Regional Hospital where complications developed early Wednesday morning.

Davies spoke to iNFOnews.ca this afternoon, prior to catching a flight to Vancouver to be with his wife and daughter.

He said things happened so quickly the evening of Feb. 27 there was no time to get to the hospital before the baby’s arrival.

“We were prepared, the due date was Saturday. We were ready to go when labour started at 10:20 p.m. The first and second contractions were 17 minutes apart, and 15 minutes apart between the second and third. At that point we said, ‘Maybe it’s speeding up, better get to the hospital.'"

Davies went to pick up his 15-year-old daughter to stay with the couple’s two-year-old before the arrival Davies'  Vernon inlaws who were on their way to Penticton.

By the time Davies picked up his daughter and got back to the house, his wife had given birth.

“We’re talking six or seven minutes, the baby was here,” he said. "My wife was upstairs grabbing the hospital bag, she came downstairs and got an excruciating pain and called 911.”

Davies said the couple were repeatedly sent home from hospital before the birth of their first child because they weren’t far enough along in labour.

“This time around we were a little more prepared… we knew the timing of the contractions and when we needed to go to the hospital," he said.

The 911 call kept dropping, Davies says, because of poor internet at the couples home.

“The hospital said we did nothing wrong. They believe the baby might have taken some fluid in her mouth because of the speed of her delivery,” he said.

“It’s kind of scary, and we’re not new parents. This is our second together, and my third child," Davies says. "We’re not inept people, it just really caught us off guard."

“From start to finish, from the first contraction, it was maybe an hour."

— This story was updated at 1:28 p.m., Wednesday, March 1, 2017 to include more information.

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