Keilee and Brett Keegan will have one hell of a story to tell at their daughter Airlie's 21st.
The parents admit they are "still in shock" two weeks after the startling birth of their baby girl on the bathroom floor of their Gillieston Heights home.
“I was in a bit of pain earlier that night,” Keilee said of the evening of August 16.
Keilee rang Maitland Hospital and was told her symptoms sounded like Braxton Hicks contractions. A few hours went by with the pain worsening.
“I let out a bit of a scream which Brett thought was our four-year-old son having a nightmare,” Keilee explained.
A second scream roused Brett from his sleep to find his wife hunched over in the bathroom.
The duo came to the sobering realisation the baby was on its way. Brett ran to collect clothes for the trip to hospital, but Keilee ominously stated: “I don’t think we’re going to have time”.
Brett hurriedly phoned Triple 0 for guidance.
“They asked if the head was showing and I said no. I wiped the sleep out of my eyes for one second and all of a sudden the head was there,” he said.
It was the beginning of a swift labour which lasted no more than 10 minutes, and finished at 4.14am with their petite baby girl Airlie in their arms.
“It was pretty scary,” impromptu midwife Brett said in somewhat of an understatement.
“But we got our little girl and we’ve been over the moon since.”
With mum and bub well, Brett and Keilee called their four-year-old son Kruz into the makeshift maternity ward to meet his new little sister.
Making the bathroom birth even more spectacular was that Keilee had been advised against ever having a natural birth again, after complications during Kruz’s birth.
Remarkably, she had been booked in for a cesarean the day after.
“For the birth to happen safely was just really amazing,” Keilee said.
The family were soon whisked to Maitland Hospital by ambulance, where they stayed for a few hours of observation before being discharged that afternoon.
Both parents said the enormity of the occasion was still sinking in several weeks later. They agreed it’s a story ready-made for Airlie’s eventual 21st.
“It’s pretty crazy. I don’t think she’ll believe me,” Brett smiled.