The 'Pretty Little Liars' star is opening up about the unique delivery.
For Troian Bellisario and her husband, Patrick J. Adams, their second baby arrived in a spectacular style. The couple welcomed their second daughter, Elliot, in May, and the pair are now opening up about the experience of delivering the baby in their car.
Bellisario and Adams recently joined Katie Lowes for an episode of her podcast, Katie's Crib, and the two didn't hold back when it came to the vivid details surrounding the unexpectedly sudden birth of their little girl.
"We had some really scary moments in this pregnancy," Bellisario shared, recalling how, at 20 weeks, a simple check-up became a frightening moment when the doctor couldn't find a heartbeat for the fetus.
A follow-up with a specialist revealed the scare to be a false alarm, but it seems that wouldn't be the last time their baby girl threw the pair for a loop before even being born.
When the couple welcomed their first daughter, Aurora, in October 2018, Bellisario's labor lasted over 26 hours and proved to be tough going. Because of this experience, when Bellisario seemingly started having contractions, they didn't exactly spring into action.
According to Adams, because her contractions were coming so close together, they were advised to head to the hospital immediately. But the parents were "still not in panic mode."
Things got more stressful as the two drove to the hospital, and Bellisario became increasingly uncomfortable and pained.
"I'm starting to have to push my seatbelt away from me... I'm in a lot of pain, but I'm also like, 'I can't be in this position anymore,'" she recalled.
The contractions and discomfort increased along the drive, and things escalated quickly as Adams pulled into the hospital parking lot.
"As soon as I hit the button and get the ticket, she's screaming," he explained. "I whip around, and by the time I turn my head around, Troian is fully on her hands and knees and we've gone nuclear."
The actress recalled telling her husband that she had inadvertently soiled herself, and then recalled how things began to get fuzzy in her memory -- including how she managed to get on all fours in the back of the car in the first place.
Meanwhile, Adams had essentially parked in front of the doors to the ER, and was going at "1000 miles an hour" in his head as spoke to a security guard and told him to get help.
"I get up to the guy and I say, 'It's all happening, in the car. You need to get the wheelchair down here, you need to get the people, all the people! all the professionals! It's happening!'"
However, Adams recalled how the guard seemed to think he was exaggerating. So, to emphasize his point, he opened the car door to reveal his wife.
"As soon as I open it, Troian is doing one of her incredible howls," Adams said, adding that it motivated the man to take the situation more seriously, but it was still taking a long time. So Adams returned to the car to hear his wife screaming for him.
"I scream, 'Get my pants off! Pull my pants down!'" Bellisario recalled.
"So she is still on all fours, butt facing the windshield. Her butt's at my head level, so I just go and pull down her pants," Adams added, "and [the baby's] head is right there."
"She was crowning," Bellisario said.
It was at this point that Adams had no choice but to deliver the baby himself -- which was clearly not something that was part of their birth plan. That being said, the actor managed to keep a surprisingly level head.
"There was no room for panic," he recalled. "You just need to deal with this situation."
He also had to work on instinct, memory of his wife's previous labor, and intuition. As more and more of the baby began to come out, he thought that perhaps he should give a gentle pull to see if he could coax her out.
"Immediately everything in my body told me, 'Do not do that!'" Adams said, explaining that he then provided a bit of counter-pressure and it allowed Bellisario to continue pushing.
"And remember, what we're describing all took place in the span of about three minutes," Adams explained, adding that, after he "checked the neck" to make sure the umbilical cord wasn't wrapped around it, "One more push and the baby was all the way out."
Adams said he recalled how it's important for none of the fluids covering the baby to get into their nose or mouth and block breathing passages, so he turned the newborn upside down, "And as soon as I turn her upside down, she starts crying and screaming." Which means she was healthy and thriving.
"I just look over my shoulder, because I'm still on all fours... and I see Patrick holding her upside down, and she's wailing, so I was like, 'She's alive, she's OK. She's breathing," Bellisario remembered.
In all honestly, the labor -- which lasted around four hours in total -- came like a tidal wave that the couple realized they had to just ride out.
"She was just getting out of the way of this baby," Adams shared. "This baby was coming and Troian was trying to move her body around it in the best way she knew how."
Hear the entire, incredible story on the latest episode of Kate's Crib.
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