Exclusive Interview with Woman who Delivers Surprise Baby

38-year-old Bonita Ewen of Grants Pass was at her sister's house when she started having cramps.  She called her work to tell them she was sick.  But about an hour later her sister, Cheryl Sheppard, called her work to say Ewen had delivered a baby.

The apartment isn't a hospital.  And the bed little Chance was delivered on wasn't a hospital bed.

Bonita Ewen says, "It was just 'menopause'.  That's what I thought it was."

To say Chance's arrival was unexpected is an understatement.  He wasn't early.  Bonita Ewen didn't even know she was pregnant.

Ewen adds, "I had no clue.  I didn't have the signs and symptoms of a pregnancy.  I really didn't.  I had no nausea, no cravings, none of that stuff." 

Sheppard delivered her new nephew.  She also thought her sister just having bad cramps.  Sheppard says, "She asked me if I would look.  So, I looked and it was a head!"

Ewens says of her baby, "It's a miracle child.  It's a miracle baby.  I get another gift, because I wasn't supposed to have any more kids."

Sheppard was a little out of her comfort zone when she delivered the baby.  But she says, she'd play doctor again.  She says, "I'm a really squirmish person when it comes to blood.  But this didn't freak me out or gross me out or anything.  I just knew I had to do it and I was the only one here to do it."

Ewen says of her surprise baby, "When you can't plan, you can't save.  And with no insurance it's kind of a hardship but it's okay because things always happen for reasons."

Cheryl Shepphard called 911 and they walked her through the birth.  Sheppard says when Chance came out he was purple and he wasn't breathing.  The 911 dispatcher told her over the phone how to clear his airway and then the baby started crying.

On the way to the hospital a paramedic asked Ewen if she had named the baby yet.  She said she hadn't and asked the paramedic what she would name him.  The paramedic said "Chance" and mom liked that idea.

Chance was a full-term baby.  He weighed 6 pounds and 4 ounces when he was born.  His mom says she didn't think she could get pregnant because most of the women in her family start menopause early.  During the past 9 months she says she only gained 10 pounds.