When 8 1/2-month pregnant Sheera Lowe boarded an Amtrak train in Philadelphia, she started to feel contractions.
She was reportedly feeling intense cramping and was sweating profusely. She also starte to fear that her water had broken.
So she set off for the train’s cafe car and approached the only woman who wasn’t listening to music or preoccupied with her smartphone and said, “I think I’m in labor.”
The train’s staff quickly emptied the car and informed the conductor. Paramedics were called after the train made an unexpected stop.
“He told me we were 10 minutes away from Aberdeen, could I make it,” said Sheera.
“No,” Lowe said she told him. “You don’t understand. This baby is coming.”
One of them said Lowe needed a stretcher, but she replied that she could not move because the pain was too great. The EMT then yelled, “She’s crowning,” recalled Sheera.
The passengers around then started happily exclaiming, “it’s a girl! It’s a girl!”
Then Sheera felt as if she couldn’t move. After three intense pushes, she gave birth to a beautiful 8-pound baby girl.
“I started screaming and pushing,” she said. “Just three pushes, and Trinity was out.” Trinity was born at 6:01 p.m.
The EMTs quickly wrapped her in aluminum foil and paper to keep her warm.
She named her Trinity Christina Stokes, after the kind woman who helped her.
“She wouldn’t leave my side in the whole thing,” Sheena later told The Washington Post. “I’m so happy and so grateful she stayed.”
Sheera laughingly recalled that her sister even joked that she should hurry back home because she might give birth on a train.
“I guess she was right,” the new mom quipped.
One of the Amtrak employee’s called Sheera’s sister and husband to let them know what happened and to reassure them that both mom and baby are doing just fine.
Even though the birth was sudden and unexpected, Sheera considers giving birth on a train a blessing.
The new mom shared that she worried the delay would upset her fellow passengers but she was glad to discover that when she left the train, they were “standing outside smiling, clapping, and congratulating her.”
“Everybody was so supportive,” she said. “They were really sweet to me. It really brought a lot of happiness to my family.”
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