Keelin Taylor was expected, but the way he came into the world Monday was a surprise to everyone.

The boy was born just after 2 a.m. in the back seat of a taxi in Oakland, in the middle of a snowstorm.

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Dispatcher Sarah Bailey had just arrived at work when she took the call about a back-seat birth, and used her emergency medical training to calmly guide the process.

Hillary Pratt holds her new born baby son, Keelin Taylor, at Thayer Campus, MaineGeneral Medical Center in Waterville. Pratt gave birth to Keelin in the backseat of a taxi cab in Oakland early Monday morning. Staff photo by Michael G. Seamans

“Honestly, I didn’t know what to think,” his mom, Hillary Pratt of Benton, said Monday from her hospital bed. “All of a sudden, I had to start pushing.”

The drama started just after 2 a.m., when Pratt, 25, told her fiance, Derek Taylor, that she was in distress. She was supposed to go to the hospital at 7 a.m. to have labor induced, but she started having birth contractions early.

Pratt and Taylor were at the home of Taylor’s sister, Ericka Curtis. They immediately called G’s Taxi to take her to MaineGeneral Medical Center’s Thayer Campus in Waterville. A taxi van arrived and Pratt managed to get inside.

But there was no time for anything else.

“I sat in the cab and my water broke,” Pratt said. “I was kind of amazed. I was trying to get to the hospital. Apparently, (Keelin) had other plans.”

The driver called Waterville police. Dispatcher Sarah Bailey, who had just arrived at work, answered the call.

“It was a taxi driver saying a female in his back seat was having a baby in front of a residence,” said Bailey.

Bailey’s emergency medical training kicked in, and she followed the protocol for helping to deliver a baby. She called Delta Ambulance and Oakland Rescue, while telling the cab driver what to do, step by step.

In an audio recording of the call, which lasts about seven minutes, Bailey’s calm voice is heard giving instructions to the cab driver, who relayed them to Curtis, who was in the back seat with Pratt.

In an interview Monday, Curtis, 28, said she has had 14 miscarriages and lost a baby in childbirth because of her unusual blood type and other complications. Last year, she finally gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Dalton.

As Curtis found herself in a situation she had never imagined — delivering a baby herself — she was determined to make sure that Pratt and her baby would be OK.

“She was saying, ‘It hurts, Ericka, it hurts,’ and I was like, ‘I know, I know,’” Curtis said.

Pratt gave birth sitting up in the back seat of the cab.

“She pushed and it was coming right out,” Curtis said. “His head popped out and he was facing downward.”

Bailey, the dispatcher, then offered a gentle reminder. “The baby will be slippery, and don’t drop it,” she said.

After clearing the baby’s mouth and nose, Curtis reported that the baby was fine but the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck and arm. She unwrapped it from the baby’s neck and then Oakland police officer Jake Pierce arrived to help.

“I unzipped my jacket and was able to put the baby inside of it before the police officer arrived,” Curtis said.

Pratt and the baby were taken by ambulance to Thayer, where both were doing just fine later Monday morning.

Keelin weighed in at 6 pounds, 5 ounces. He joins siblings Matthew, 4, Damian, 2, and LA-Keisha, 14 months.

Pratt said she wants to meet Bailey one day to thank her .

Curtis said the delivery was successful thanks to the calm instructions from Bailey and the cab driver, plus her own experience watching television shows about babies.

“I was really, really, really scared because I didn’t want to hurt him or anything, but I thought that, where I’m a mother and I love children, it was kind of natural,” she said.

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