(CNN) — Thousands of Floridians hunkered down at home and in evacuation shelters last week as Hurricane Milton slammed into Florida’s west coast.
But as the storm unleashed deadly tornadoes, power outages, and flooding en masse, dozens of mothers across the state gave birth – some for the first time – under less-than-ideal circumstances.
In Polk County, sheriff’s deputies helped a mother-to-be get to the hospital just in time after she went into labor in the middle of the night as Milton raged on.
Ambulances could not transport residents due to the high winds, so deputies drove the expecting parents, Zenia and Javier, to the hospital in a patrol car, according to a social media post from the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.
Further west, a Pinellas County shelter set up for hurricane evacuees welcomed a newborn mid-storm.
“Our shelter staff helped with the delivery,” said Emergency Management Director Cathie Perkins. “Just beautiful to see that new life in the middle of all of this destruction.”
CNN spoke with three mothers who gave birth for the first time while Milton impacted the state. These are their stories.
A ‘tense’ 12-hour delivery
Madeline Furnas could see the heavy rain unleashed by Hurricane Milton from her hospital room window, but she knew she had to focus on giving birth to her first child.
“As things got more serious and it looked like the storm was going to go straight through the state, we started getting more nervous,” Furnas, a registered nurse in Tavares, Florida, told CNN.
A few hours before Milton made landfall, Furnas and her husband Grant drove to the AdventHealth Waterman hospital in Tavares, about 35 miles northwest of Orlando, because their doctors were concerned that Furnas could go into labor, she said.
She ended up going into labor that night as Milton made a devastating landfall and moved inland, Furnas said. When she was in the delivery room, Furnas said they could feel the “tension” of the storm.
“My contractions had really started to pick up. I was starting to get a little bit uncomfortable,” Furnas said. “The rain was lashing against the windows, and the palm tree outside was blowing all over the place.”
After 12 hours of labor, Furnas gave birth to her daughter Charlotte – one of 67 babies delivered at Florida’s AdventHealth hospitals during Milton.
Hundreds of nurses, physicians and specialists cared for expecting families in Orlando, Tampa, Daytona Beach, Orange City, Tavares, Winter Park, and Altamonte Springs, AdventHealth said in a news release. Nearly half of the babies were born across 14 AdventHealth hospitals in the Tampa area, according to the hospital system.
Dr. Mamie Rogers, who helped deliver Furnas’ daughter, told CNN the hospitals made staffing changes to prepare for the storm and tried to find ways to make patients feel less like they were in a “catastrophic” situation.
“Even though everything is going on outside, we still maintain calm within our doors, and we still take excellent care of patients,” Rogers said.
‘I feel really lucky’
In nearby Orlando, another couple was unsure how long their stay at the hospital would be.
Shaniya Dunchie, 27, started having contractions the morning of October 9 and quickly headed to the hospital.
“I knew that I wanted to be at the hospital before the storm came because I didn’t want to be at home laboring. I didn’t know how the roads were going to be when we got to the hospital,” said Dunchie, an early childcare worker in Winter Park, Florida.
Dunchie said she didn’t know what to expect, it was her first time giving birth and most of her family had to stay home due to the storm. But after four hours of labor, her son Shamar was born.
“I feel really lucky to have them (hospital staff) there during the hurricane because I don’t know if I was still at home, if I would have been able to handle it all on my own,” Dunchie said.
Both Furnas and Dunchie said they later returned home and found their houses unscathed.
For now, Furnas says she is basking in motherhood with her “sweet little baby.” Down the line, she’ll have quite the story to share with baby Charlotte about the day she was born.
“During the chaos of everything, she decided to make her appearance… even though it could have been a scary experience. I don’t have any negative feelings towards it at all. I thought it happened exactly how it should have happened,” Furnas said.
Bringing home baby to storm damage
Days before her due date, Hurricane Milton forced Hally Bojadzija and her husband Irfan to evacuate from St. Petersburg, Florida. The first floor of their home and Hally’s car had already sustained storm surge damage during Hurricane Helene.
The couple fled to a relative’s home in Jacksonville, she told CNN. What would normally be a four-hour drive took eight hours as thousands of Floridians evacuated the state.
“Thursday morning, around 6 a.m., I woke up and I started having contractions, and my due date was on Tuesday night, so the day before the storm hit,” Bojadzija said.
At that point the storm had passed and Bojadzija, 33, had been turned away from a Jacksonville hospital because she wasn’t dilated enough. So, she and her husband packed up their belongings and drove back home to the west coast.
“We were nervous about driving home, but we decided to drive directly home to [St. Petersburg], and it took us about five hours,” Bojadzija said. “Traffic wasn’t as bad, luckily, but I was having contractions the whole time, so it was miserable.”
The parents-to-be made it to Orlando Health Bayfront Hospital in downtown St. Petersburg Thursday afternoon. The hospital was under a boil water notice and the staff was running on empty, she said.
“We were recommended not to shower in the water because it was coming from the well, and it was smelly, so it was definitely an experience,” Bojadzija said. “I am endlessly grateful to [the staff] for working around the clock through the storm, even though I know they were exhausted.”
By Friday afternoon, Bojadzija had given birth to a healthy baby girl and power was restored at their home.
But dealing with a newborn and storm damage has proved interesting for the couple, Bojadzija said. Now, they need to find a place to stay while contractors work on their home.
“We’re not sure exactly where we’re going to go, because we can’t be here with a newborn with them spraying everything from mold and cutting drywall,” Bojadzija said. “I’ve never had damage like this, so it’s all new.”
Bojadzija says she and her husband are planning to find a new home further inland at some point, but they have no plans to leave Florida.
“We were so excited for a fall baby because of the weather, and having her for the holidays, but thinking about hurricane season now, maybe we’ll think about a different time frame for the next one,” Bojadzija joked.
A South Tampa man turned to Susan Solves It after he said ADT told him he had to keep paying for a security system at his Hurricane Helene-damaged home, even though the system was so new that he never had a day of service.
