https://youtu.be/Iv_guTUckmg
Ashly Moreau thought she had another month before her unborn son Daxx was making his grand entrance into the world. Ready or not though, Daxx took Ashly and everyone else by surprise when she went into labor on August 11.
The 36-year-old had gotten up to go to the bathroom when her water broke more than a month before the baby’s due date of September 20.
She couldn’t believe what she saw when she looked down: her baby’s two feet sticking out of her. Daxx was breached, and early, and he was coming.
The Louisiana mother’s fiancé, Kelsey Richard, had already left for his job so Ashley had no choice but to call out to her son, Jayden, for help.
She told the 10-year-old to run next door and get his grandmother, forgetting that she had recently had back surgery and was unable to walk. The grandmother called 911 as Jayden darted back to his mother. When he got to the bathroom, she was bleeding profusely.
Ashly knew they only had minutes to get this baby out if he was to have any chance of survival.
“I said (to Jayden), ‘You’re going to have to deliver your brother, and we have to do it fast because the baby’s feet are turning blue and he can’t breathe,” Ashley said. “He said, ‘Tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.”’
Jayden calmly followed what his mom told him to do in gently rotating Daxx out of the breach position.
“I was crying, but I just tried to stay calm and collected,” Ashly said. “Jayden was so calm that it made me more calm. I could see he was scared, but he knew he had to do it.”
In a matter of minutes, Jayden successfully helped his mother deliver his baby brother. But Daxx wasn’t breathing.
That’s when the 10-year-old’s quick thinking had him rushing to the kitchen to grab a nasal aspirator that Ashly uses on her 11-month-old daughter, Remi.
He came back and used it to pump air into Daxx’s mouth. The baby began breathing just before emergency crews arrived.
They were transported to Lake Charles Memorial Hospital where Ashly’s fiancé rushed from work to join them.
Doctors say Ashly’s bleeding was likely a result of the placenta detaching from the uterus wall because of the premature birth.
Daxx is progressing and Ashly is recovering well. The newborn is expected to return home in another week.
“Every time I think about it, I just cry,” Ashly said. “I don’t think Jayden understands what he’s done and how big it is.”
One thing is certain: Jayden will have an incredible story to tell his little brother about the day he was born, and how his quick thinking saved his life.
The 10-year-old was honored for his heroism at Maplewood Middle School on Monday, by the mayor and first responders of Sulphur, Louisiana.
