Oh, and did we mention this all happened in a foreign country?
We’ll just say it: This woman MacGyvered her baby’s birth.
Tia Freeman, a member of the U.S. Air Force who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, had Twitter users on the edge of their seats Tuesday when she decided to share her incredible delivery story.
In early March, the pregnant 22-year-old chose to take a trip to Germany despite being close to the end of her term. Freeman only learned that she was pregnant in January, per BuzzFeed, when she was already in her third trimester, and she had booked her vacation flight before finding out.
“I was in shock,” Freeman told HuffPost. “I never saw myself as a mom before. I was more career-oriented. That’s probably why I was in denial after finding out.”
On March 7, she took a 14-hour flight to Istanbul, Turkey, where she had an overnight layover en route to Germany.
Freeman explained on Twitter that after eating an in-flight meal, she began to feel sick but chalked it up to food poisoning at first. At the airport in Istanbul, it dawned on her that maybe there was another explanation.
“I’m literally gripping the railing trying to make it through the lines. At this point I feel like I’m about to pass out. I’m sweating. I feel like I have to vomit. I’m going through it. Then I’m like wait a minute bitch are you in labor?!!!— Tia Freeman (@TheWittleDemon)
So in true millennial form I decided to @Youtube it. If no one else had my back the internet would! So here my ass is in my hotel room all by my lonesome learning how to deliver my own baby.
“Not many people spoke English that I encountered at first,” she told the news outlet. “And I didn’t know what the country’s emergency number was and I didn’t know how my insurance would work overseas so I just decided to DIY it.”
It’s weird how focused a person becomes when they’re adrenaline starts going. Because at no point ever did I freak out. Like I just did what I had to do.
Freeman then grabbed two towels — one to wrap her baby in and the other to bite onto while she gave birth — and filled the bathtub with warm water. Thanks to research on the internet, she began to push once her contractions were a minute apart.
After just a few pushes, the baby “popped out” and “floated right on up to the top of the water,” she wrote on Twitter. It was a boy!
Freeman then had to figure out a procedure for removing an umbilical cord without the proper tools. After checking online, she sterilized her shoelaces by boiling them in water and used them as clamps as she cut the cord.
After all this, the new mother still didn’t go to the hospital. Instead, she cleaned the bathroom because “it looked like the set of a horror movie” and went to bed with her newborn son.
So I clean up the bathroom, breastfeed my baby, and go to sleep. No I do not go to the hospital I take my ass to bed.
So the next day I wake up for and get ready to go to the airport because I already paid for the cab the night before & even though I knew I couldn’t fly out
Naturally, when she got to the airport the next day, there was a lot of confusion.
“They thought I was a human trafficker trying to smuggle out a baby,” she wrote online. When I get there the airport workers are freaking out bc you can tell this baby is fresh. I legit didn’t have any baby clothes & made him something out of my favorite blue oversized button down (RIP)
Anyway they thought I was a human trafficker trying to smuggle out a baby.
But once Freeman and her son were examined and her story checked out, airport staff apparently were very nice.
According to BuzzFeed, they even helped name her son, Xavier Ata.
Tia Freeman“The ladies at the airport who helped me said that he should have a Turkish name,” Freeman told the site. “So I asked them for a cute boy name and they suggested Ata.”
FreemanFreeman was taken to the U.S. Embassy in Turkey where her son was issued a birth certificate and a passport.
Tia FreemanShe was then transported to the hospital where she and Xavier received a clean bill of health. She remained in Istanbul for two more weeks, a stay that Turkish Airlines paid for in full.
During her time in the city, Freeman’s incredible story made headlines at several local news outlets.
To wrap up I go to the hospital get checked out everything is fine. He’s perfectly healthy! Lol the doctors were shocked to hear my story. I made national news & people would stop us to take pictures all the time & a random elderly woman grabbed my boob as I was breastfeeding— Tia Freeman (@TheWittleDemon)
Freeman told BuzzFeed that no one in her family had known she was pregnant.
“They all found out a couple days after he was born.”
She said that she told her grandma, who told her mom, “and then my mom went crazy telling the rest of our family and every other person she came in contact with. When I got back even our lawn care guys knew!”
People online absolutely loved Freeman’s story. Freeman told the Independent that despite all the risks she took, she wouldn’t change a thing.
“The experience taught me so much. I learned how to be resourceful and calm under pressure. I was able to bond one on one with my son from his first breaths,” she said.
Freeman and baby“I’m thankful that everything went well and I was able to deliver a healthy baby,” she added. “I know everyone isn’t always so fortunate but I appreciate the experience and hopefully he’ll think it’s an amazing story when he’s older!”
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