While the internet is also used for cute cat videos and keeping in touch with distant relatives, Tia Freeman sped down the information highway to find guidance during an emergency DIY childbirth.
Oddly, the 22-year-old Air Force employee from Nashville did not even find out she was pregnant until her third trimester. Since she was already set to fly to Germany in early March, she prayed that she would not go into labor during the trip.
Unfortunately, Freeman was in the middle of a layover flight to Istanbul when she started to feel abdominal pain. Thinking it was just the airplane food, she did not even guess that she was going into labor until she landed in the Turkish city.
Freeman was in quite the dilemma – not only was she unsure whether her insurance would cover a trip to the hospital, she wasn’t sure how many people spoke English in the foreign city.
She then decided to make sure that she was actually going into labor, so she took a cab to her hotel room.
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“When I got to my hotel room I realized just how quickly he was coming,” said Freeman, according to CTV News. “I figured I just have to do this.”
For starters, she ran a Google search on how to deliver a baby. With the internet’s resources at her disposal, she opted for a water delivery “to help contain the mess a bit”.
Though she says that the contractions were painful, she watched YouTube videos on breathing techniques and focused on getting through the delivery.
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After successfully delivering her son, she quickly read over some articles on how to take care of the afterbirth and the umbilical cord. A WikiHow article recommended using scissors and clamps to cut the cord, neither of which she had.
The young Air Force worker sterilized her shoelaces in a pot of boiling water and used them as clamps before using her pocket knife to cut the cord.
“I did a mighty fine job if I say so myself,” she wrote in a tweet.
The very next day, she contacted the US Embassy and arranged for the baby’s birth certificate and citizenship. Freeman and her son were both checked over by a doctor and certified as healthy. Though the consulate required her to stay in Turkey for another two weeks before the child was fit to fly, Freeman says that Turkish citizens were very kind to her.
Freeman decided to pay homage to the baby’s unusual birth by giving her son a Turkish middle name: Xavier Ata Freeman.
The baby is now being “spoiled endlessly” by Freeman’s adoring family.
(WATCH the video below)
Click To Share The Incredible Story With Your Friends – Photos by Tia Freeman