Teacher gives birth outside school with principal and dean's help: 'They were my support people'

Elise Solé
Updated

A teacher gave birth on the sidewalk outside her school, with the assistance of her principal and dean of students.

Lindsay Agbalokwu was due with her second baby on September 17, so when the Colorado mom woke up on Tuesday with cramps, she wrote them off as Braxton Hicks – small contractions that don’t necessarily indicate early labor.

So Agbalokwu drove to work at DSST: Conservatory Green in Denver, where she teaches reading to middle school students and hoped for the best. The 33-year-old had a busy day ahead teaching and handing out core value awards. But after the ceremony, when Agbalokwu went to her sixth-grade homeroom class, her cramps strengthened.

“The pain felt different,” the teacher tells Yahoo Lifestyle. Agbalokwu asked co-teacher Marissa Kast to cover her classroom and to alert principal Natalie Lewis and dean of students Chris Earls, while she used the bathroom.

“In the classroom, the pain went from zero to 100,” Agbalokwu tells Yahoo Lifestyle.

Lewis and Earls walked Agbalokwu outside the building while she debated calling her mother for help. “I said, ‘We should call 911 — I think the baby is coming,” says the teacher.

Fortunately, Kast had a sleeping bag in her car, so she laid it down on the sidewalk while Lewis called for an ambulance.

“I lay down and we put the dispatcher on speaker phone, who started giving delivery instructions to Natalie and Chris,” Agbalokwu tells Yahoo Lifestyle.

After a few “terribly painful minutes” during which Lewis coached Agbalokwu with encouragement, a fire truck pulled up to the school and emergency workers took over.

Baby Zara was born immediately and the mother and daughter were driven to the hospital. Agbalokwu is now home with Zara, her husband, and their 17-month-old son.

“I was in so much pain, I didn’t care that these people are my bosses — they are both parents,” Agbalokwu tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “They were my support people.”

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