Friendship Fallouts·
BACKSEAT BIRTH
A pregnant woman goes into labor in a friend's car and the chaotic, costly aftermath tests a fragile friendship and moral questions about gratitude and blame.
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She went into labor in her friend's car and ended up delivering her daughter in the back seat.
The poster was almost 38 weeks pregnant when her partner left for the afternoon to help a brother. To keep her company, a friend she called Alice came over. The two spent the day watching movies and hanging out, and the poster says she felt uncomfortable all day but did not think she was actually in labor.
Then it became clear it was happening for real.
She called her wife. For a moment, they considered waiting until the wife got home, but things moved too fast. Labor picked up quickly, and the poster asked Alice to drive her to the hospital. They didn't make it.
"We didn't fully make it to the hospital & I ended up having my daughter in her (husband's) car," the poster wrote.
The baby was born safely, and the poster said both she and her daughter were fine, though she had a few complications that later resolved. Her wife had a hard time missing the birth, but the family soon shifted focus to the new baby.
Two days later, the poster messaged Alice to thank her and, in the same breath, asked her to send a bill for the car cleanup. She wrote, "Please send me a bill for having the car cleaned." Alice didn't answer right away. When she finally responded, it was only with a "like" on the message.
The silence kept going. The poster messaged again, and again got nothing back. Then Alice's husband stepped in with a blunt text: "Congrats on the baby but thanks for fucking up his car."
That left the poster rattled. "I'm very aware this sounds ridiculous but I'm so tired of worrying about this, I need some outside perspective," she wrote, asking, "Did I just traumatise her so much & need to leave her alone?"
She said she was grateful Alice had driven her and tried to make things right. In later edits, she explained that she planned to pay them back, reached out again to apologize, and offered to cover the cleanup or any other costs. She also said she would look into estimates and insurance.
By then, the situation had shut down completely. "She's deleted/blocked me now, I'm at a loss," the poster wrote. Even so, she said she would keep trying to fix the damage, one way or another. "I'll continue trying to make this right & reach out some places to get some estimates/contact insurance/so on."