SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

A Ch­aguara­mas grand­moth­er is be­ing hailed as a hero af­ter she de­liv­ered her daugh­ter’s ba­by in the wee hours of yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Kathy Ann Ed­wards, 50, was able to safe­ly de­liv­er her grand­son, Leonar­do Gabriel Stew­art, at 12.42 am, when her el­dest daugh­ter, Patrice Ed­wards, went in­to labour while vis­it­ing her on the com­pound of the Mil­i­tary Mu­se­um in Ch­aguara­mas. Leonar­do was born three weeks be­fore his due date.

In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day at the mu­se­um’s com­pound, where she lives, Ed­wards said be­fore Patrice ar­rived, she called her com­plain­ing that she was get­ting some labour pains.

“She had gone to a work event ear­li­er in the day and when she came over, she said the con­trac­tions start­ed to get worse,” Ed­wards said.

With Patrice com­plain­ing of ex­treme pain, Ed­wards said the mu­se­um’s pres­i­dent, Lin­da Kelshall and Patrice’s boyfriend, Re­nal­do Stew­art, tried get­ting as­sis­tance from the T&T Coast Guard base next door but they were told there was no medic or am­bu­lance avail­able.

A call to the emer­gency hot­line got them the same an­swer.

“They couldn’t get an am­bu­lance, we call around and they didn’t have any am­bu­lance, then they got this am­bu­lance from Mt Hope but there was a par­ty (in Ch­aguara­mas), so they took re­al­ly long to get here,” Ed­wards said.

The medics in­struct­ed Ed­wards to put her daugh­ter to lie on some cush­ions on the floor and to make prepa­ra­tions for the ba­by’s birth - by boil­ing wa­ter and ster­il­is­ing string for the ba­by’s um­bil­i­cal cord.

“I was to­tal­ly ner­vous, even though I am a mom of five kids, I nev­er de­liv­ered a ba­by be­fore and I was re­al­ly shak­ing and it was like God just take me over,” Ed­wards said.

When her daugh­ter start­ed to ex­pe­ri­ence the strongest con­trac­tions, Ed­wards was able to calm her.

And al­though it was her first time de­liv­er­ing a ba­by, Ed­wards said her in­stincts saved the ba­by’s life.

“She was telling me ‘Mom­my, I feel­ing to push’ and I told her to push. When I looked, the ba­by’s head was out, there was a voice in my head telling me to check for the navel string and when I checked, the navel string was around the ba­by’s neck and I re­moved it and then told her to push again. By then, the shoul­ders came out and the ba­by was born,” she re­called.

She was able to tie lit­tle Leonar­do’s um­bil­i­cal cord and placed him on his moth­er’s stom­ach af­ter check­ing that his air­way was clear.

But it would be an­oth­er 90 min­utes be­fore the am­bu­lance fi­nal­ly ar­rived to take the moth­er and child to the hos­pi­tal.

“We kept the ba­by warm un­til the am­bu­lance got here. They didn’t get here un­til af­ter 2 and the ba­by was born at 12.42 am, they took a re­al­ly, re­al­ly long time to get here but I thank God that every­thing went well with her,” Ed­wards said.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Ed­wards yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, she said Patrice and ba­by Leonar­do were both do­ing well at the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal.

Asked how she felt af­ter the de­liv­ery, Ed­wards said she would do it again if she got the chance.

“I feel I could do it again be­cause I have the con­fi­dence, I know what to do now,” she said with a smile.

Leonar­do’s fa­ther, Re­nal­do Stew­art, praised Ed­wards for her courage in de­liv­er­ing his son.

Stew­art said al­though he and Patrice have two oth­er chil­dren, he was shocked when he walked in­to the room af­ter try­ing again to get as­sis­tance at the Coast Guard base and saw Leonar­do be­ing born.

“As I walked in the door, I saw the ba­by’s head was out and I froze, I couldn’t move. Thank God for my moth­er-in-law be­cause she han­dled every­thing re­al­ly well, I don’t know what I would have done if it was me alone,” he said.