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Baby really was delivered by a Stork
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Alicia and Woods Miller of Charleston didn't find their new baby, Samuel, under a cabbage leaf. He was, however, specially delivered to their home Aug. 14 by a Stork.
Firefighter/paramedic Shane Stork of Fire Station No. 2 in Charleston delivered Samuel when the infant put in an appearance before his parents could make it to the hospital. |
| Little Samuel Miller sits with the people
who were with him when he arrived in the world in August, from left, his
parents, Woods and Alicia Miller, and Charleston paramedic/firefighter
Shane Stork. Kevin Kilhoffer/Journal photographer |
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The Millers are happy to have a healthy baby -- their third child -- and delighted with the story they'll be able to tell him when the time comes for Samuel to ask that age-old question, "Where did I come from?"
The cabbage patch and the stork are both part of lovely little myths parents relied on for years to avoid telling their curious children the facts of life before they -- the parents, not necessarily the children -- were ready.
In the real-life version, however, the stork didn't come swooping in to land on the roof of the Miller home or even their front yard. This Stork arrived just in time in a modern, fully-equipped ambulance. Samuel Woods Allan Miller IV was born at 12:13 p.m., weighing 7 pounds, one-half an ounce and measuring 18 1/2 inches long.
On the day Samuel was born, Mrs. Millers' sister, Melissa Marquez, who works for a local bank, had stopped by on her lunch break to check on her sister, who was alone.
"I was in the shower when she came in," Miller said, "and I called out to her and asked what time it was," Miller said. "She said 11:50, so I had been in the shower for about half an hour. I got out of the shower and made it halfway down the hall and had the urge to push.
"I told her to call Woods and make sure he was on his way home from work. When another contraction came, I really had to push. I yelled for her to call 911, because I knew I wasn't going to make it to the hospital."
Miller said since the baby was her third, she knew her labor wouldn't be as long as with her first two babies -- 28 hours and 22 hours -- but this time was different.
"I had been having labor pains for a week and a half," she said. "I went to the hospital twice and both times, they sent me home. The first time, the doctor said to go home because I still had a long way to go.
"The second time I went back because the pain was pretty bad. I was 2 centimeters dilated, but they still told me I wasn't in labor. They said I should wait until the pain got worse or my water broke. But, my water never broke until the baby was born. And, the pain didn't seem to get any worse. It was tolerable right up to when I had to push."
Stork said he and other paramedics were just sitting down to eat lunch at the fire station when their alarms sounded.
"I looked at the computer to see the exact time and it was 12:08," he said. "Our first thought was that it might be a false alarm, because we've been called to a lot of those, but as soon as we were enroute, our dispatcher came back on and said that they could feel the baby's head.
"I got a little nervous then -- not scared, because we're trained, but not many people in their careers get a chance to deliver a baby."
Stork said his first thoughts were of all the things that could go wrong.
"I'm thinking back to paramedic school and thinking OK, what are the priorities here? What can go wrong? What are the things I need to do?
"We had two cruisers respond," he said. "And we get there and go jogging up to the door with our jump bag and our OB kit and the door is open and I hear a lady scream and I realize it's the real thing.
"She and the father are in the bathroom. Actually they were both pretty calm for the situation.
At 26. Stork is the youngest firefighter/paramedic on his shift.
"Most of the guys who have been there 10 or 15 years haven't delivered a baby," he said. "They were laughing about it later. They said, 'Of all things, the rookie gets it.'"
Both mother and baby were taken by ambulance to the hospital, where emergency room personnel could tell by the look on Stork's face that things had gone well.
"They told me I was grinning from ear to ear," he said.
"Mom did all the work. We were there basically to catch and to try and fix any problems there might have been. But, fortunately, by the grace of God, it was a nice, healthy delivery, a young, healthy mother with good prenatal care and a healthy baby with no problems."
The Millers have settled into a routine with their three children. The couple's two daughters, Alyxzandriah, 4, and Serenity, 3, who missed the excitement because they were in Alaska visiting their grandmother, are enjoying their big sister roles.
Samuel's mom and his dad, an employee with Lester Building Systems in Charleston, are happy that he's sleeping through the night. And the Stork, who is, after all, not a myth, is still on the job.
"I'll never forget it," he said. "It changes you a little bit getting to help bring a new life into the world. I'll always remember him.
"As a kid, I always caught a lot of flak for having the name Stork. The kids would tease me about growing up to deliver babies -- and hey, one day, I did."
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