Top Birth Stories 2023: Wild, Funny, Newsworthy Births – TODAY
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Every baby’s birth is a special event, and some are extra memorable.
This year, we saw giant babies, dads freaking out in delivery rooms and incredible moms overcoming huge obstacles to safely bring their children into the world. Here are some of the most notable birth stories of 2023.
Cheers to parents everywhere — we see you and we appreciate you!
Safina Namukwaya got pregnant with IVF and had a boy and girl via cesarean section on Nov. 29, she and her doctor reported to TODAY.com. The babies were born at 31 weeks gestation and each weighed more than 3 pounds, according to Namukwaya’s fertility specialist, Dr. Edward Tamale Sali.
To help with the conception of her children, Namukwaya turned to in vitro fertilization (IVF). Due to Namukwaya’s age, she used donor eggs and her partner’s sperm.
In the U.S., the upper age limit for in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and other medically assisted reproduction is generally mid-50s.
“I feel great,” Namukwaya told TODAY.com through an interpreter on a video call. “Some might argue that 70 years is old, but God decided that I get to have twins at 70. There is no one that can put a limit on God’s authority and power.”
The birth process isn’t for the faint of heart, as this Arkansas father discovered.
Brett Sills, a father of three, was assisting in his the labor of his girlfriend of six years, Amanda Roelofs, when he did something he hadn’t done for the births of his older children.
He watched while his youngest child emerged into the world.
“I was just looking at her head! It went from being baseball size to a freaking cantaloupe,” Sills tells TODAY.com.
Texas couple Haley and Tyler Waterman had been waiting nine months for Sunday night.
But shortly after they took their seats at the Cowboys-Patriots game on Oct. 1, Haley’s water broke, three weeks prior to her due date.
Even with the general chaos in the stands, fans surrounding the Watermans noticed what was happening “because I kept repeating — basically yelling — ‘My water’s broken and we need to leave!’” Haley says. “I had tunnel vision but apparently everyone was cheering us on.”
Security guards and medics helped transport the Watermans to the hospital, where they welcomed daughter Delaney Lou Waterman, into the world. Weighing in at 7 pounds, 11 ounces, Delaney was about half as heavy as an NFL football, and at 21 inches, she’s about twice as long.
Kelsey Hatcher from Dora, Alabama has a rare condition — a double uterus. She shared the good news on Dec. 22 that had she given birth to two daughters, one from each uterus.
Releasing two eggs and carrying a baby in each uterus is incredibly rare and “classified as truly one in a million,” according to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital, where Hatcher gave birth.
One daughter, Roxi Layla, was born Dec. 19 at 7:49 p.m. while her sister, Rebel Laken, was born Dec. 20 at 6:09 a.m.
Hatcher and her husband, Caleb, were already parents to three kids, and they say they look forward to having Roxi and Rebel join the crew.
Crystal Wade navigated four foot snow drifts down the side of a mountain to deliver her daughter, aptly named Winter, during California’s February 2023 blizzard.
“It hurt to be outside. You couldn’t even see,” Crystal says. “You had to close your eyes and the snow was whipping you in the face.”
Baby Winter’s birth wasn’t the end of the story, though. Crystal and her husband Brady had to make their way back up their San Bernardino Mountain home, picking up their 4-year-old at a neighbor’s house on the way.
When their truck got stuck in the snow-covered road, the couple walked. “My wife, literally two days after giving birth, carried a baby in her jacket through massive snow drifts,” Brady tells TODAY.com.
Luckily, the family of four made it home safely.
Cleidiane Santos dos Santos, 27, gave birth to son Angerson on Jan. 18 at Hospital Padre Colombo in Parintins, Amazonas State, according to Brazilian newspaper O Globo. The infant, who weighed 16 pounds and measured 2 feet long, was delivered via C-section.
“I felt like I had been hit by two tractor-trailers simultaneously,’’ Buckley told The Washington Post about her condition the next morning.
Later in 2023, Britteney and Chance Ayres of Ontario, Canada, got the surprise of their life when their infant, Sonny, was born on Oct. 23 weighing 14 pounds, 8 ounces — about double the size of an average newborn.
Sonny is the biggest baby on record at the hospital since Cambridge Memorial Hospital started tracking measurements in 2010.
“When they put Sonny on the scale, there was a drumroll and all the doctors and nurses were throwing out guesses about what the number would be,” Chance, 37, tells TODAY.com. “After they read his weight, everybody was cheering like the league had won the Stanley Cup.”
In April, Corianne Johnson captured the reaction of her husband, Cody, when he saw her epidural needle. He fainted, crumpled up on the delivery room floor, crawled on the ground, sipped juice and passed out on a couch with a blanket draped over his body.
She posted the images on TikTok with this text: “I’m totally not going to pass out while you’re in labor, babe.”
“I knew he was going to pass out. I regret not betting money on it!” Corianne, 26, tells TODAY.com, with a laugh. “He can’t handle needles. He didn’t even see the needle go into my back — he just saw the needle and that was it. He went down.”
School nurse Tylar Krause called Loren Carcamo to pick up one of her two daughters at the school because she was sick — but when she arrived, Carcamo went into labor.
Krause’s office summoned teacher Maria Perez, who had delivered hundreds of babies as an OB-GYN resident in her native Venezuela, and she quickly realized Carcamo would not make it to a hospital in time.
About 10 minutes later, Carcamo welcomed her baby, a girl named Leire Madeleine.
“What are the odds of having a baby at a school in the first place? But having a doctor there that’s done it? We’re lucky. Blessed, I would say,” Krause said.
Shayanna Markham, 27, of Vacaville, California was having contractions and was 5 cm dilated when she was examined at her hospital.
Doctors told her she could stick around and wait hours (or days) until the baby arrives, or she could return home. Markham chose the later option.
Shortly after arriving at home, Markham used the toilet and realized she could feel the baby’s head. The mom prepared to give birth by laying a towel on the floor and squatting over it.
“There was no stopping her from coming out,” says Shayanna. “I got really quiet — there was no screaming. I pushed and then caught my daughter.”
Markham’s sister Surena shared a June TikTok video of the experience, partially captured on home security footage. It has over 14 million views.
On July 31, Angela Mercer, who was 31 weeks pregnant and had been experiencing pain, had just settled into her seat at Fenway Park in Boston for a Pink concert when she received a callback from her OB-GYN.
“My doctor was like, ‘This is more than Braxton Hicks, you need to get to a hospital,’” Mercer tells TODAY.com.
With help from her mother and sister-in-law, Mercer hobbled to the street and made her way to Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where she gave birth to her son, Aycen Hart.
Mercer calls his name “serendipitous.” As luck would have it, Pink is married to Carey Hart.
Pink took a moment from the U.S. leg of her 2023 Summer Carnival tour to tweet her congratulations to the Mercers.
Rosie Colosi lives in New Jersey and is a reporter for TODAY Parents. She has bylines in The Atlantic, The Week, MSNBC, and PureWow, and she has written 33 nonfiction children’s books for Scholastic, Klutz, and Nat Geo Kids. Once upon a time, she played Mrs. Claus in “The Rockettes’ Radio City Christmas Spectacular,” but now she mostly sings songs from “Annie” to her two daughters … while they beg her to play Kidz Bop.
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