CHRIS LOWREY
BRISTOL April 16, 2018
Highway 148 is a relatively busy roadway. Plenty of deliveries have been made on the stretch of highway, but this wasn’t your typical UPS dropoff.
After feeling her contractions start, Alina Séguin-Holmes and her husband Phil Holmes were on route to the Shawville Hospital when the couple had to quickly pull over so she could give birth on the roadside.
Alina first felt her contractions at about 8:15 p.m. on April 16. At that point, the couple called Alina’s parents to come take care of their other two children, four-year-old Mason and 16-month-old Amelie, as previously planned.
The only thing is, Alina’s parents live about an hour away in Stittsville.
As the contractions got closer together, the Holmes knew they wouldn’t be able to wait for Alina’s parents to arrive.
Phil called his mom, Carol, around 9:30 p.m. to come over immediately. Meanwhile, Alina got in the family van as Phil canvassed for neighbours who could keep an eye on the kids until his mom arrived. Unfortunately, he could not locate anyone.
By 9:45 p.m., Phil’s mom pulled in the driveway and Alina and Phil made a beeline for the hospital.
But by the time they reached the intersection of Gilpin Road and Hwy. 148 – a two-minute drive from their house in Norway Bay – Alina knew they wouldn’t make it.
“I told him to pull over,” Alina said. “My water broke, I gave two pushes – well I wouldn’t even call them pushes.”
In the time it took Phil to walk around the van and open the door, he was in position to deliver their happy, healthy third child – Davison.
Phil immediately called 911. The dispatcher stayed on the line and told them to head to the hospital.
When they arrived, Alina said the nurses were in disbelief.
“The nurses looked stunned,” Alina said. “The doctor just laughed at me.”
Alina said she has had relatively quick births before, but never expected anything like this.
“I always thought it was something that happened in movies,” she said. “Now I’m one of those lucky people. I will say it was the easiest delivery of the three.”
Alina said she was impressed with how calm Phil was in the moment. But as the gravity of the situation dawned on him, she said he was a little bit rattled.
To top it all off, Phil had one of the worst jobs of the whole ordeal.
“He was the poor unfortunate soul who had to clean out the van,” she quipped.
Despite the fact that Phil had delivered his own child just moments before, the van cleaning seemed to affect him the most.
“All he said was ‘I saw things I can never unsee,’” Alina said.
