Buc-ee’s travel centers are known for being more than just gas stations. Visitors enjoy clean bathrooms, beloved food items like Beaver Nuggets and Texas barbeque and more. Now, “impromptu maternity ward” can be added to the list.
Nathan and Jena Birdsong of Marshfield, Mo., weren’t intending to bring their third child into the world in a Buc-ee’s parking lot, but that’s just what happened during the early morning hours of Nov. 14. Here’s how it all transpired.
Jena, 29, woke up with contractions at around 11:30 p.m. but wanted to let her husband sleep for a few hours, according to KOLR. She ended up waking him at around 1:45 a.m. after she was certain she was in labor.
Then they called Nathan’s parents, who live around 45 minutes away from the couple, to watch their two older children. By the time the grandparents arrived, Jena’s contractions were around five minutes apart and she was ready to head to the hospital.
It was around 2:45 a.m. when they headed out from their rural neighborhood to Cox South in Springfield, Mo., another 45-minute drive from their home. The Birdsongs realized on the drive that they might not make it to the hospital in time, just after they called the hospital to ask which entrance they should arrive at.
“Around Strafford area, she starts really groaning,” Nathan said, per KOLR. “I start thinking, ‘I don’t think we’re going to make it’. Then, her water breaks.”
According to TODAY.com, Jena said “things got really painful, really quickly.”
On the phone with 911, Nathan told the operator that they would be taking the next exit on the I-44 west. Specifically, he said they would be at Buc-ee’s.
“By the time I got on the off ramp on I-44, they transitioned me to a Mercy representative to give me advice for the birth.”
He ran to his wife’s side of the car, and she began pushing. While the rep talked him through it, Nathan caught his daughter. Elaina Grace Birdsong entered the world in the welcoming lot of the Springfield Buc-ee’s at 3:16 a.m.
“Everything happened so fast,” Jena told TODAY.com. “One minute we were timing contractions, and the next we were in the Buc-ee’s parking lot meeting our daughter.”
Police arrived just a minute after the birth, followed by an ambulance, and they all went to the hospital. There, the new baby weighed in at 7 pounds and 1 ounce. That was Jena’s largest baby. Both her and her daughter are healthy, KOLR said.
“We don’t go to Buc-ee’s often, but we do love getting gas there,” the parents said. “It’s going to be a great story.”
They’re also expecting that Elaina can look forward to being called “Buc-ee” for the foreseeable future. Her birth certificate will also memorialize her ties to the chain, Jena said.
“It’s going to be fun to get the birth certificate. It’s going to say the location is Buc-ee’s, with the address on Beaver Road,” she said.
It might be a trope in movies and TV, but births outside of hospitals are actually fairly uncommon in the U.S. According to a 2019 study published in the Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care journal, one out of every 62 births in the U.S. was an out-of-hospital birth as of 2017. However, it did say that out-of-hospital births were increasing, with home births increasing by 77% from 2004 to 2017.
“Recent increases in out-of-hospital births despite important limiting factors highlights the strong motivation of some women to choose out-of-hospital birth,” said the study. It did not include any data about births in Buc-ee’s parking lots.