A Texas Woman Gave Birth Alone Inside Her Car. The Newborn’s Birth Certificate Is Being Withheld Because There Were No Witnesses

A Texas mother is still trying to get an official birth certificate for her daughter, nearly a month after she gave birth to her child alone in a car.

Hair stylist Michelle Serrano Gonzalez was scheduled to give birth to her sixth child via c-section – the only way she’d ever given birth, according to KXAN.

Instead, her new baby arrived suddenly, two days after she’d initially gone to a doctor experiencing what her physician said were Braxton Hicks contractions.

“I was scared. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m going to die,’” Serrano Gonzalez told KXAN of the sudden pain and bleeding she experienced. “I just prayed, ‘Oh Lord, help me.’”

Serrano Gonzalez canceled a customer’s hair appointment and left her salon before going into labor alone, in her car, which was still parked outside her salon. 

“The 911 operator on the phone said just go ahead and push, don’t keep her in. And I pushed,” she told KXAN. 

“I could feel me tearing and I felt her head come out… I quickly just grabbed her. She was still in her sack. I could see her swimming around in the fluid and crying, and I quickly just yanked the sack off of her.”

Eventually, EMTs arrived and brought both Serrano Gonzalez and her new baby, Zayla, to the hospital. In spite of her dramatic birth, Zayla is a healthy baby, according to KXAN. 

Serrano Gonzalez, however, is facing administrative red tape to get her daughter’s birth documented. Since no one else witnessed the event, she has to provide a written witness statement from the EMTs, a note from her doctor verifying the pregnancy and a notarized letter from a friend.

“It makes me very upset,” Serrano Gonzalez told KXAN. “It’s just one thing after another.”

Still, in spite of the difficulties acquiring the birth certificate, Serrano Gonzalez expressed gratitude for her daughter’s health, after her tumultuous birth.

 “I am thankful that she’s here, and she’s out,” she told KXAN.