'Never did I think I wasn't going to make it': B.C. mom gives birth in car with help of 13-year-old daughter

When Liz Verges started feeling contractions in the middle of the night at her home in the Cariboo, she thought she would be able to make the 45 minute drive to the hospital in Williams Lake before her baby arrived.

She immediately called her neighbour to watch her one son, and then hopped in the car with her other neighbour, Shari Suter, and her 13-year-old daughter, Baileigh Stowell, to make the trip from Meldrum Creek into the city.

"Never did I think I wasn't going to make it," said Verges. "Everything was going as planned until we got about halfway to town."

'I'm pushing'

Verges said they got about halfway down Meldrum Creek Road, southwest  of Williams Lake, when she felt the urge to push.

Suter pulled off the steep, hair-pinned road into a brake-check at the top of a hill, but Verges asked her to keep going in hopes of making it to the hospital on time. 

"It just seemed like that whole drive was the longest drive down the mountain creek road that I ever made," said Suter.

Verges told Daybreak Kamloops host Shelley Joyce, that she started pushing about halfway down the hill.

"I kept telling them, 'I'm pushing, the baby's right there.'"

Moments later, Verges gave birth to a healthy six-pound baby boy in the front seat of Suter's Prius. 

"All of a sudden he was there, and he started crying, and I just put him up on my chest. It just happened so fast," said Verges.

Mom's helper

Verges' partner, Rylan Stowell, works out of town and had just left the day before, so their daughter Baileigh had been home from school for the past few days helping her Mom out. 

However, Baileigh didn't expect to help deliver her brother in the car. "[My mom] was really hot, and I was pretty clammy and a bit nervous," said Baileigh.

"My hands were cold, so I was putting them on my mom, because she was hot. I tried to cool her down."

Baileigh sat in the back seat and assisted with her Mom's birth. 

"I actually went to a calving clinic ... and I learned quite a bit there about giving birth and having a human baby is quite similar," she said.

After the baby was born, Suter told Daybreak Kamloops' Jenifer Norwell that she asked Baileigh to wrap her Mom and baby brother in a blanket that was in the back of the car and to make sure his airway was clear. 

Once they got to the hospital, Baileigh said she ran into the emergency room and the hospital brought Verges inside on a stretcher.

'She did it'

"It was so surreal to be driving and ... just seconds ago this baby appeared," said Suter. "Liz did it. I mean she did it herself in the passenger seat of a Prius."

Verges and baby are now back home from the hospital. 

"He's a great baby so far, and we're all adjusting really, really well," said Verges.  

"Our little community has been really great, and all the neighbours have been really great and supportive, and we're really thankful for that."