A Michigan mom says she’s feeling grateful after she unexpectedly gave birth in a McDonald’s parking lot.
For Alyce Rotunda, 32, everything unfolded quickly in the early morning hours of Aug. 11. The day before, she and her husband, Kevin Rotunda II,had traveled to the hospital because she was having contractions.
“The contractions kind of stopped. So we spent a few hours up there [at the hospital] the night before, just to get sent home,” Alyce said.
She continued to experience symptoms, so she and Kevin set off for the hospital. But midway through the drive, they realized they wouldn’t be able to make it in time, and Kevin called 911.
“[My husband] whipped into McDonald’s. The 911 dispatcher’s on the phone trying to kind of guide us,” Alyce recalled. “After he pulled in and parked, my husband kind of helped me get out of the van.”
Alyce said their fourth baby’s arrival, one week before she was scheduled to be induced, was swift.
“After I stood up, I could feel things were happening,” she said. “And so, I actually reached down and fully felt her head, like her head was already coming out at that point. And so I yelled to my husband, I was like, ‘You need to catch her right now.'”
Kevin was able to catch their daughter Matilda “right in the nick of time.” Alyce said some of their relatives have already nicknamed their fourth child “McTilly.”
“We have every intention of just calling her Tilly instead of Matilda. And so, now that this all happened, they just threw a ‘Mc’ on there,” she said.