If you ask any nine-year-old if they would help their mother deliver a baby, they would probably go “ew”!
But, sometimes, life can be so full of surprises that even children who wouldn’t get their hands “dirty” can step in and help in emergency situations, when they know they have no other option.
Nine-year-old Aakayla Gunn of Missouri, is a “girly girl”, as her father, Caleb Gunn, told FOX 4.
“She’s scared to touch worms, so just to look at some things that she looked at was amazing,” Caleb says of his daughter’s courage and bravery.
Aakayla’s mom, Angelica, 30, also has a younger son, 4, and, at the time, she was nine months pregnant with their baby sister.
Her due date was not earlier than a week later, so when she started feeling contractions, she wasn’t sure if the time had come.
Even more confusing was the fact that, two days earlier, she had gone into false labor. So, when the contractions began again, she decided to wait and see.
But this time it was for real.
When she called her husband to rush home, it was already too late, she was in labor, and she was soon about to give birth to her baby girl.
Just how she would be able to do it without any professional help, or even another adult around, she had no idea.
Luckily, Angelica is a doula herself, so she knew what to do, and it was easy for her to give instructions. But to whom?
At that point, she realized she could only be assisted by her daughter. However, she was not sure if that was the right decision, given the young age of Aakayla.
When the contractions started to hit hard, she knew she had no other option.
“I just screamed for my daughter to come in,” she told Good Morning America. “I was like, ‘Something’s happening, you’re going to have to look and tell me what’s going on because I don’t know.’ I kind of just felt intense pressure and like [the baby’s] head was coming out.”
The young mother, who had previously been debating inside about whether her daughter would be traumatized by this experience, now knew that she would need the girl’s help in order to deliver the baby safely.
“In that moment I was like, this is a moment we’re going to have to share together and it’s a bond her and her sister will have forever,” she said. “All that other stuff just went away out of my mind and I focused on the moment at hand.”
Indeed, after three pushes, the baby was born, and, as Aakayla said, she was beautiful.
Soon after, the paramedics arrived, and took the mother and her newborn to the hospital to make sure they were both in perfect health- and thankfully, they were indeed.
Aakayla will never forget this experience, and neither will her mother. It seems like they might have a doctor on their hands, as her parents say.
Watch Aakayla and her mom recount the amazing story in the video below!
Please SHARE this with your friends and family.
