Stephan Waddell was driving his wife Emily to the hospital when she realized they weren’t going to make it. Stephan pulled over on the side of Interstate 69 where their daughter Reagan was born weighing 7 pounds and 10 ounces on September 12 at mile marker 12.

Labor and Delivery

While an increasing number of pregnant individuals are opting to give birth outside of hospitals, an estimated 98.5 percent of births occur in a traditional hospital setting.

According to data published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), about 1.5 percent of births—or 59,000 babies—in America in 2014 occurred outside of hospitals.

But it still remains uncommon to deliver a baby while in transit, whether in a car or on public transport.

One woman who recently experienced one of these rare deliveries thought she had “plenty of time” to get to the hospital before giving birth in the car. Another woman received applause after giving birth on an airplane.

‘Pull Over Now’

Emily, a mother of three, told Stephan she did not want to have the baby in a truck just moments before making him pull over.

“Just past mile marker 13, I could feel her head coming out and screamed at Stephan to ‘Pull over. NOWWW!’ Emily recalled in a Facebook post. “Since my water never broke, she started coming out in my hands, still in her sack.”

Stephan pulled off the interstate where he assisted Emily to deliver their daughter. After a successful delivery, Emily suctioned out the baby’s mouth and nose while Stephan worked to tie off the umbilical cord.

“Stephan used 2 phone chargers to tie off the umbilical cord while I suctioned her mouth and nose out with my mouth,” Emily wrote on Facebook. “Which is very difficult when you just pushed a baby on the side of the road.”

She also said she immediately started skin-to-skin with the baby and began breastfeeding.

“It was 35 minutes from when contractions were still at 8 minutes apart to having a baby in our arms!” she wrote. “Born at mile marker 12, 9/12/22. 7lbs10oz. 20.5in.”

‘Are You Joking’

Throughout the ordeal, Emily said she was on the phone with her sister, a labor and delivery nurse, while they waited for the ambulance to arrive.

“My sister was like, ‘Wait, are you joking? No, you did not just have a baby on the interstate.’ We’re like, ‘Yes we did,’” Emily told WEVV.

After settling in at the hospital, Stephan told Emily that while it was “definitely the coolest” thing they’ll possibly ever do, he wouldn’t want to do it again.

“What I told Emily when all was said and done, we were back at the hospital and I knew she and Reagan were okay, is that there’s not a dollar amount in the world that would make me be willing to go back and change that,” Stephan told WEVV. “We don’t want it to happen again, but it was a really special thing, it just being the three of us right there, right away.”

Newsweek reached out to Emily and Stephan Waddell for comment.