Mom delivers baby girl alone

Three months ago, 30-year-old Saskia Brown experienced an event that would transform her life forever. About 1 a.m. on September 1, Brown, who was pregnant with her fourth child, began feeling sharp pains. Initially brushing them off as cramps since her baby was due in mid-September, the pain intensified as the hours passed.

"First I got up, tried to walk around to ease the pain, but the pain only got worse and by 2 a.m. I realised these are definitely contractions because it was happening in a specific pattern, like a sequence, like every 10 minutes," she explained.

Despite having given birth before, this labour was unlike anything she had encountered.

Brown, who lives near Yallahs in St Thomas, was home with her six-year-old daughter and four-year-old son and felt unsure of what to do.

"I had a taxi man's number but ... I don't want to disturb anybody's home at this time of the morning," she said.

By 3 a.m., the contractions were so intense that Brown could no longer walk and realised she would have to deliver her baby at home.

"Everything was happening so fast, and I literally had to make up my mind that I am not going to die," said Brown, who, determined to stay calm, laid a sheet and sponge on the floor and focused on her breathing.

"By 4 a.m., the contractions were closer together and by 5 a.m., I had to be holding on to the bed foot every time it came; and it was like every four minutes, because I started using the timer on the phone. So they were every four minutes apart, the pain was more intense, and it was a very traumatic experience," Brown said. At 5 a.m., her water broke, and fear overcame her.

"I began to feel some type of fear because I'm saying, wow, nobody is here to help me, nobody is there to tell me when to push, so I just had to have faith," Brown said, adding that as the contractions worsened, she began praying and playing Gospel music, and searched online for guidance.

Initially, she read that she should push with each contraction, but when she did, nothing happened. Fearing that pushing too early might harm her baby, she waited until she felt the overwhelming urge to push around 7 a.m.

"I tried to push, enuh, but the pain was so severe I didn't bother and I said to myself, 'How am I going to do this, this morning?' And I began to pray and turn up the music even louder, and I said I have to. I'm not gonna die and I don't want my baby to die," said Brown. With each striking pain, she pushed and, after three big pushes, her baby girl, named Victorious as a testament to her ordeal, emerged.

"I was sitting in a pool of blood, and I took her up and wiped her off and then I put her to lay down," Brown said.

But Brown's challenges were far from over. She needed to deliver the placenta and cut the umbilical cord -- tasks she had only just read about moments before.

"I didn't even know what a placenta looked like, but I massaged my belly and then this big thing came out ... and I said okay this must be it," she recounted.

Unable to stand, she asked her four-year-old son to pass an old pair of scissors she had sanitised three times. Using them, Brown cut the cord and stopped the bleeding with a brand new hair tie.

Despite her exhaustion, Brown cleaned up, rested, and prepared for her scheduled prenatal appointment three days later. At the clinic, both she and her daughter were declared healthy.

"I'm so grateful everything worked out. It was really scary, but I know it was God who saw us through," Brown said. The experience left a profound impact on her, shaping her future aspirations.

"Although it was traumatic, it changed my life. Before this, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but now I want to pursue a career in nursing," she said.

Brown has five Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate subjects and another four Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination passes. Her long-term goal is to study midwifery, but due to limited funding she intends to take courses in practical nursing until she is able to achieve her dreams.

For her children, she said: "I want them to have a better life than I did, and I want them to go to university. I don't want them to go through the struggles I did, and I'm going to do everything I possibly can to give them a better life."