39°
The Wantage mom was due on June 29, and was planning on a home birth.
But contractions started on Saturday afternoon, June 1. The following day, she delivered Baby Boy No. 5.
In just two pushes. With two contractions. In the passenger's seat of her family car in the Route 206 Wawa parking lot.
Kneeling next to her was New Jersey State Police Trooper Romeo, who caught Baby Lane Wilder McPherson.
"I had this suspicion and this fear of having the baby in the car or at work, or some place else, just because of how my other two labors went fast," said the Wantage mom, 36, who had her second-born in less than an hour and her third in seven minutes.
"I am just so glad this was my fifth baby and not my first, and that I knew what to expect. I can't imagine though through this having never given birth before."
Both McPherson and baby Lane Wilder are doing well, and on Friday, June 14, they were reunited with the troopers and first responders who'd come to their aid in the Wawa parking lot.
McPherson's first baby, Jude, was born in 2014. It was a mostly-typical 12-hour labor, McPherson said. Then came Ezra in 2016, in about an hour.
Three years later, McPherson delivered Zion, who seemingly was competing with big brother Ezra, as he came in just seven minutes. With Zion, McPherson sped herself to Newton Medical Center, on the wedding anniversary with husband Trevor.
Zion came so fast that Trevor couldn't make it to the hospital in time to see his delivery.
McPherson's fourth baby, Beck, was another normal labor in 2021.
This time around, McPherson wasn't sure what to expect, but knew anything was possible.
Everything was going according to plan, as the contractions began on Saturday night, June 1.
McPherson went to Morristown Medical Center, where doctors told her she was very sick and dehydrated. They said that was why she was having contractions.
Once she started feeling better, McPherson pleaded with the medical staff to let her go home. They obliged.
On Sunday evening, June 2, around 5:30 p.m., the contractions started up again.
"I was taking a nap and trying to fight this cold," McPherson said. "That's when I had these two really horrible contractions back to back, and I knew we needed to go."
The plan was to head to Morristown Medical Center, but by the time she had made it down the stairs, McPherson knew she needed something closer: Newton Medical Center, it was.
The McPhersons left their older two boys with a neighbor and threw the younger two in the car. At the end of their street, McPherson's water broke.
"I said, 'We need a police escort,'" McPherson recalled, directing her husband to call 9-1-1.
McPherson both wailed and laughed through contractions, listening to her boys mimicking her in the back seat.
County dispatchers instructed the McPhersons to pull over and wait for an ambulance. But McPherson knew time was not on her side, and begged dispatchers to send an escort.
The dispatcher transferred the couple to New Jersey State Police dispatch, who also instructed them to pull over.
"The baby's coming!" McPherson remembers yelling. "I can't wait for an ambulance. Tell state troopers to meet us so we can fly to the hospital."
As the McPhersons were coming down Route 515, the then-mom of four glanced up.
"I just saw all these state troopers coming toward us. You could hear their cars revving past us, and I heard the dispatcher say, 'Pull over so they can meet you,'" McPherson said.
There was no shoulder in the road. McPherson told her husband to pull over in the Wawa parking lot.
"In that moment I realized I wasn't getting to a hospital," she said. "It just wasn't an option. The baby was coming."
State troopers blocked off the intersection and guided the McPhersons into the Wawa lot. Some troopers entertained the two boys and got them snacks, but Trooper Romeo knelt down next to McPherson in the passenger side of the car.
"He opened the door and I was like, 'I have to push,'" McPherson said. "He must have been the youngest, most-unseasoned trooper who had never had a child birth, and I was like, I'm about to traumatize him."
After one push, the baby's head came out. Romeo instructed McPherson to keep pushing. She explained she needed to wait for another contraction.
Moments later, the contraction came. And so did the baby.
Romeo was right there to catch him at 6:09 p.m.
"You could tell he was nervous, but he did great," McPherson said of the young trooper.
"I was rubbing the baby and he started crying, I was like, we're good, the baby is crying. I asked for a nasal syringe to suction him and that's when an ambulance showed up."
In the rig, one of McPherson's coworkers, also named Stephanie, who works on the paid shift during the day.
After delivering the placenta in her car, McPherson joined her coworker in the ambulance where she learned her baby was a boy, and headed to Newton Medical Center.
McPherson is still wrapping her head around the whole ordeal.
"I mean, a Wawa parking lot was NOT my preference of a birth place, she said in a Facebook post. "But I am so grateful that everything worked out the way it did."
McPherson extended a 'thank you' to NJSP and Sussex County Communications, NJSP Sussex Station for sending troopers so fast, and Trooper Romeo, "for remaining calm and professional and not passing out. I will never live down the mortification of causing that amount of trauma, especially before dinner."
She thanked the Frankford Fire Department "for making the Wawa parking lot sparkling again.
"And thank you to Wawa for allowing us to use your parking lot! Thank you to anyone I may have missed, I truly appreciate everyone’s assistance and support.
"Lane Wilder McPherson, you are a very special boy ♥️."
Click here to follow Daily Voice Cliffside Park-Edgewater and receive free news updates.
