Texas mom gives birth to twins during Memorial Day road trip
A Texas mother unexpectedly gave birth to twin boys on the side of Highway 377 near Lake Texoma, Oklahoma, during a Memorial Day weekend trip after going into labor nearly two months early.
Shelbee Dugger-Kemp, who was 31 weeks pregnant with twins, told ABC News affiliate KOCO 5 that she initially believed she was experiencing cramps before realizing she was in labor.
Dugger-Kemp recalled warning her grandmother as the family drove toward the hospital.
“I told her, ‘Mimi, we’re about to have babies in the car,’ and she was like, ‘Oh no, we’re not,’” Dugger-Kemp recalled.
Dugger-Kemp said the situation escalated quickly as the family rushed toward the hospital.
“My reaction was just, ‘Oh my gosh. What do I do?’ because I kind of just froze,” she said. “I still had clothes on, so I had to literally get him out of my pants.”
Just six miles down the road, Dugger-Kemp delivered the first twin, Kane, inside the vehicle.
“I just threw him on my chest and started cleaning him off really good and trying to clean his nose, his mouth, and wanted to keep him warm, so I wrapped him up in a hoodie,” she told the station.
With Kane in her arms, Dugger-Kemp then focused on delivering his twin brother, Kallen.
“The time between Kane and Kallen coming out, that was all that was going through my head,” she said.
Five minutes later, Kallen was born while still inside his amniotic sac.
“He actually came out in his sack still, so that was crazy,” Dugger-Kemp said.
In a Facebook post shared May 24, Dugger-Kemp described how the day unfolded before the emergency delivery.
“Today I woke up a little crampy, cooked breakfast & we went and had lunch at pelicans landing,” she wrote. “I thought the nachos food poisoned me because the cramps were getting worse and I was having tummy issues.”
She said the pain intensified rapidly.
“Within 15 minutes my pain was unbearable and I knew I needed to get to the hospital so we jumped in the car and headed for one!” Dugger-Kemp wrote.
In the same post, she described the moments after Kane was born.
“He opened his eyes really big at me and just wrapped his little arm around my stomach,” she wrote.
Dugger-Kemp also shared that she had to open Kallen’s amniotic sac herself while waiting for emergency responders.
“I didn’t know what to do. I was terrified,” she wrote. “So I opened the sack and did the same thing with him.”
An ambulance later transported the family to Mercy Hospital in Ardmore, Oklahoma, before the twins were transferred to Oklahoma Children’s Hospital for specialized neonatal care, KOCO reported.
According to Dugger-Kemp, Kane is breathing on his own while Kallen initially needed some oxygen support. Both babies are maintaining their blood sugar levels and body temperature.
“Overall they are great,” she wrote.
The twins were born nearly two months before Dugger-Kemp’s original due date of July 24.
The family is now waiting to transfer the babies back to Texas while also navigating temporary housing challenges near the hospital.
“We get here, and there’s no hotels available because of the championship and softball,” Dugger-Kemp told KOCO 5. “We’re on the waitlist for Ronald McDonald.”
Dugger-Kemp also shared on Facebook that doctors had warned her throughout the pregnancy that "baby b" faced significant risks because of an issue involving his umbilical cord.
“I was terrified because they’ve told me this entire time baby b had a huge chance of not making it unless I did a c section due to his umbilical cord,” she wrote. “But I am okay.”
