Natasha Downing planned to give birth at a birthing center but her unborn child couldn’t wait.
Instead, Downing gave birth on her front porch, with the birth captured on her doorbell camera.
Downing, 34, experienced contractions every 30 seconds on Aug. 22 at her Calabasas home and planned to go with her midwife to the delivery when she realized she wasn’t going to make it.
Natasha Downing was giving birth on her porch when she realized she wouldn’t be able to make it to the birthing center.
(Courtesy of Natasha Downing)
She was on her way out the front door when her water broke.
“The baby just came,” Downing said. “We stop and I say ‘wait’ and it’s because I feel [the baby] come down. I go a little way out on the road. My water breaks. My husband sees her head halfway through.”
Downing said her body did the rest. She hardly even had to push.
“My body pushed the baby out all on its own,” she said.
Downing laid down, first on her side, then on her back, and with a push came out a healthy 10-pound girl, whom they named Lilybella. She was blue and didn’t seem to be breathing at first while still attached to the placenta, which Downing said is normal. But with no doctor available, she and her husband were scared for a few moments before Lilybella began to breathe normally.
The entire birth was captured on Downing’s doorbell camera, which shows her squatting and delivering the newborn next to the suitcase and bag her husband had packed for her at the birthing center.
“While I was running around in total chaos, she was so calm,” said her husband Tom Downing. “I saw this wave come over her who was so calm and controlled. It was really amazing to see. I saw it in her eyes.”
The midwife and paramedics soon arrived to check that the mother and baby were okay.
Downing said she felt no panic throughout the ordeal.
“It didn’t worry me [being on the porch]. I knew where I was. I felt very prepared for the birth. I think childbirth is very natural. You get to your front porch and the baby comes out,” she said.
Walking out of her house will never feel the same, Downing said.
“Every time we walk out the door, there is something special about the area. There is a small water stain where all my fluids came out,” she said. “It’s a little bit magical every time we leave the house now.”