Woman Who Delivered Her Own Baby in Backseat of Car Says Opera Training Prepped Her for the Moment

As an opera singer, Emily Geller Hardman is used to putting on a show. But she never imagined the biggest performance of her life would be giving birth in the backseat of a car.

Emily and her husband Travis were at a wedding in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, when at the stroke of midnight, her water broke. Things got intense, fast. 

“The contractions were immediately about four minutes apart, three minutes apart, a minute long. So there was no early labor, it just went immediately right into active labor,” Emily said.

The couple hit the road to make the more than three-hour trip home to Briarcliff Manor, New York. But the baby just couldn’t wait!

Travis drove while Emily labored in the back seat.

“I reached down and I felt her crowning, and I told my husband, Travis, 'Pull over, I feel a head.' And she flew out in the next contraction, so I reached down and grabbed her and pulled her up to my chest really fast and said, ‘There's a baby,’” Emily said.

The new mom delivered baby Rosemary herself in the backseat. An ambulance came to take mom and baby to the hospital, and thankfully, everyone was healthy.

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