Not all heroes wear capes; some, like new mother Tia Freeman, arrive on the scene equipped with only their carry-on luggage and a few hotel bath towels. The Nashville-based woman gained Twitter notoriety this week after sharing her 100 percent certifiably bonkers story about how she delivered her own baby during a layover in Turkey earlier this year. As your friendly flight attendant might say, “Buckle up, because things are about to get wild.”
Freeman kicked off the enthralling tale by noting that she spent most of her pregnancy… not having any idea she was pregnant.
I didn’t know I was pregnant for awhile (already in my 3rd trimester) and before you ask the birth control I was on made it so I didn’t have a cycle every month. So not having a period wasn’t an indicator for me. On top of that I didnt really gain any weight.
Me when I found: pic.twitter.com/An5QA3hX8A
— CSAR: Cat Search and Rescue🏳️🌈 (@TheWittleDemon) April 24, 2018
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By the time she realized she was, in fact, with child, she’d already lined up a sweet vacation to Germany to visit her good friend, University of Tennessee football player Jakob Johnson, and she “was not about to waste international flight money.”
So I had already purchased tickets for a vacay in Germany and ya girl was not about to waste international flight money. So I was like if the boy comes on time I should be all good in the hood. So I came home for two seconds before hopping on the my flight to Germany. pic.twitter.com/SWYOpatnEN
— CSAR: Cat Search and Rescue🏳️🌈 (@TheWittleDemon) April 24, 2018
So, Freeman boarded the plane and strapped in for what she assumed would be a turbulence-free flight. That assumption changed, however, when she started getting cramps. Because she must have a uterus of steel, she initially wrote off the pain as simple food poisoning caused by the airline’s salmon dinner entrée. Natch.
“No I don’t know if it was [the] salmon, the flight, or it was just my time but out of no where [sic] I start cramping up,” she wrote. “I’ve still got like an hour left before we land. I just knew I had food poisoning. Y’all I was HURT.”
So she decided she’d just sleep it off. (Again, how does one sleep through contractions?!)
Anyway, by the time she got off of the plane, she realized that this pain was not the work of a rotten piece of fish.
“I’m literally gripping the railing trying to make it through the lines,” she recalled. “At this point I feel like I’m about to pass out. I’m sweating. I feel like I have to vomit. I’m going through it. Then I’m like wait a minute bitch are you in labor?!!!”
I’m literally gripping the railing trying to make it through the lines. At this point I feel like I’m about to pass out. I’m sweating. I feel like I have to vomit. I’m going through it. Then I’m like wait a minute bitch are you in labor?!!! pic.twitter.com/p6SMEfunP0
— CSAR: Cat Search and Rescue🏳️🌈 (@TheWittleDemon) April 24, 2018
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Freeman, who doesn’t speak Turkish (I mean, how many American tourists do?) decided she’d work through the pain and go straight to her hotel room instead of asking to see a medical professional. Insert grimace emoji here.
“I make it to my hotel & now I’m sure I’m in labor. There is no way in the world I’m not in labor because I can barely standup at this point,” she wrote. “So I’m in a foreign country, where no one speaks english, I don’t know this country’s emergency number, & I have no clue what to do.”
Oh, but just you wait: She totally did know what to do. Freeman got online and looked up how to deliver a baby on YouTube. Like you do. She filled up the bathtub, grabbed a towel to bite down on, got as comfortable as she could and started pushing.
Luckily it happened pretty quickly. I only had to push about 5-6x before a baby popped out. Lol now let me tell you babies are buoyant. That little joker said bloop and floated right on up to the top of the water 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/IuqwKXFb2L
— CSAR: Cat Search and Rescue🏳️🌈 (@TheWittleDemon) April 24, 2018
Then, boom — she gave birth to a little boy. After passing her placenta in the hotel toilet (and subsequently bagging it in a disposable sanitary napkin bag, of course), Freeman looked up how to cut an umbilical cord. Again, this woman just delivered a child all by herself in a Turkish hotel room, and her thoughts were entirely practical and rational. At this point, I’m wondering if she’s even human.
More: What Moms Think It Really Feels Like Giving Birth
After boiling water, sanitizing a shoelace and tying it around the cord, Freeman cut the dang thing off and started cleaning up the bathroom before calling it a night.
I didn’t know what I would need to leave the country with a newborn baby and I thought no better place to ask than the airport. pic.twitter.com/wTEhjfoIqC
— CSAR: Cat Search and Rescue🏳️🌈 (@TheWittleDemon) April 25, 2018
The next day, she went to the airport, where the shocked staff assumed she was part of a human trafficking scheme. Luckily, medical professionals were able to prove that she had, in fact, just pushed a human child out of her body mere hours before. She then got in touch with the U.S. Embassy, which helped her obtain a birth certificate for her son, Xavier.
Because she was in no condition to fly back to the U.S., Turkish Airlines came through and booked her a two-week stay in a hotel as well as a return business-class flight. She and her son are now safely back home, and while the rest of us are freaking out over how bizarre this ordeal was, Freeman is still 100 percent way too chill about everything.
I still really don’t understand what’s so shocking about my delivery story. Lol maybe it’ll set in one day.
— CSAR: Cat Search and Rescue🏳️🌈 (@TheWittleDemon) April 24, 2018
“I still don’t understand what’s so shocking about my delivery story,” she tweeted. “Lol maybe it’ll set in one day.”
Again, heroes walk among us.
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