Mom Who Gave Birth in Seafood Restaurant Says Strangers Helped, ‘Everyone Cheered’ When Her Baby Arrived (Exclusive)
Alyse Sparkman spoke to PEOPLE about giving birth to her third child at Lily’s Seafood Grill & Brewery in April
Courtesy Sparkman Family
Sean and Alyse Sparkman.Pregnant with her third child, Alyse Sparkman began having contractions every few minutes on April 27.
Around 6 p.m., she went to the hospital expecting to deliver her baby but was sent home because she hadn’t dilated enough. “I was disappointed,” the stay-at-home mom, 34, tells PEOPLE in an interview in this week's issue. “So I was determined to do a lot of walking, do a lot of stairs.”
Her husband, Sean, then drove them to the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, MI for dinner and parked in a garage, two blocks away from Lily’s Seafood Grill & Brewery, where they took a table on the patio.
“I parked on the third level so we would do the stairs,” says Sean, a financial adviser.
After one bite of her trout Caesar salad, Alyse felt her waters break.
“She goes, ‘Oh my God, go get the car,” Sean, 36, recalls. “I threw down some money, jumped over the fence and started running across town.”
Meanwhile, a woman seated nearby watched what was happening and held Alyse’s hand and asked how she could help.
For more amazing birth stories, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands now, or subscribe.
Courtesy Mike Fournier
Nurses Patricia Worton (L) and Kim Bourstany on the patio at Lily's shortly after they delivered Alyse Sparkman's baby.“At that point, I felt the urge to push, I knew the baby was coming,” recalls Alyse. “I screamed and kind of went tunnel visioned.”
Two Intensive Care Unit (ICU) nurses seated behind Alyse watched the scene unfold, heard the scream and jumped into action.
“I dove towards the ground and as my hand touched her clothing, the baby’s head was against it,” recalls one of the nurses, Patricia Worton. “The baby was dark, dark blue and it wasn’t breathing, it wasn’t moving. The [umbilical] cord was so tight around the neck that the mom was trying to grab it.”
Nurse Kim Boustany then used both hands to successfully lift the cord over the baby’s head.
“The baby started breathing and everyone cheered,” recalls Worton. “The baby was wet and cold, so I screamed for towels and napkins, and people started taking off their clothes [to warm the baby].”
Courtesy Sparkman Family
Baby Penelope Lily pictured at the hospital on April 28, 2024.Related: Couple Marries After Both Losing Spouses to Cancer, Then Welcomes 'Unexpected Miracle' (Exclusive)
"We were in complete shock, as much as everyone else," says Worton. "And really in that moment, we felt like we were the only people there. It was just the baby and us and the mom. We weren't really even aware of our environment or anything."
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Weighing just 4 lbs., 8 oz. at birth, Penelope Lily — partly named after the restaurant where she was born — is now almost three months old and healthy, with a shock of strawberry blonde hair.
Looking back on that chaotic April evening, mom Alyse now feels tremendous gratitude.
“One of the most beautiful things about this is how everyday people around us helped,” says the mother of three. “There was no meanness. It was all love.”
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