Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Jamie Lynn Miller wasn’t feeling well two weeks ago.
She experienced some abdominal cramps while at work at Figaro’s Pizza and they came back the next day, Thursday, April 10, when she as at home. They got worse.
Her grandmother, Deleta Miller, decided to take her to the hospital and loaded Jamie, 33, into her van and took off, talking with a 9-1-1 dispatcher on the cellphone about her granddaughter’s abdominal pains.
As the van left the Narrows, Jamie said she had an enormous pressure in the pelvic area. She reached down and felt something odd.
“I told grandma to pull over and get to looking,” Jamie said. “Grandma looks, and it was a baby.”
“We laugh now, but it was scary,” Deleta said.
Rebecca Jane Lynn Jurica was born to Jamie Lynn Miller and Dean P. Jurica at 8:40 p.m. on April 10 just west of the Narrows on Highway 20; and Miller had no idea she was even pregnant.
This wasn’t even Jamie’s first pregnancy, but things were different when her son, Christopher, was born 13 years ago, she said. Since then, she and Jurica have been trying to have a daughter. She said she has used no birth control.
The first sign that Jamie might have been pregnant was when her period stopped in September. But since her family has a history of early menopause, she thought that might be what was going on. A pregnancy test was negative.
There had been no other symptoms except heartburn and frequent trips to the bathroom. Rebecca didn’t move around much either. She attributed what must have been the baby’s movements to gas.
She had never been in labor before, she said. Her son was taken by Caesarian section. So she had no clue that her daughter was about to enter the world.
When they realized she was going to give birth, Jamie put her feet on the dash, reclining backward in the passenger seat with the help of her grandmother, she said. Her water never broke, but three minutes later, she had the baby.
Deleta had recently taken a first-aid class, she said, and it touched on childbirth. It helped her through the delivery.
“I was really concerned,” Deleta said. “She was screaming.
“One thing I remembered when her mother was born, they (tipped her head slightly down), and I asked why.”
It was just enough to clear the breathing passage, Deleta said. She did that, and Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District Paramedic Eli Harris, who had arrived on the scene, cut the umbilical cord.
The birth certificate lists Deleta as the person delivering Rebecca and the place of birth as the location on Highway 20.
When the baby came, “it was a sense of relief,” Deleta said. “We knew then what the cramps were, what the pain was.”
Sweet Home paramedic Eli Harris responded to the call with Kim Cochran, an intern with basic medic certification.
“It got toned out as abdominal pain,” Harris said. Then the dispatcher told him that the car had stopped en route to the hospital, and the call had changed to hemorrhaging.
“I’m thinking miscarriage,” Harris said. He arrived at the scene, and Jamie said, “I think I had a baby. I heard a whimper, looked down; and there’s a fuzzy little head.”
Rebecca opened her eyes, “one eye looking up at me,” Harris said. Rebecca was cold and was turning kind of blue, so he sent Cochran for a blanket and supplies. He wrapped the baby in the blanket and rubbed her stomach to stimulate breathing and activity to get her blood moving,
“I said, ‘You had a baby,'” Harris said. “She said, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ I told mom, ‘It’s a girl.’ She started crying.”
Then he cut the umbilical cord, made sure Jamie wasn’t bleeding badly and got the baby and mother into the ambulance.
It was his first time dealing with a birth in a field environment, Harris said.
Battalion Chief Doug Emmert arrived and took care of Jamie while Harris took care of the baby during the transport to SLCH.
The delivery had no complications, Jamie said. “God had a hand in this little package.”
“I called Terrie (Miller, Jamie’s mother and Rebecca’s grandmother) and said Jamie had a baby – Call 9-1-1,” Deleta said. She thought Deleta was pulling her leg. Deleta got the same reaction from Rebecca’s brother and father.
Jamie and Rebecca finished their journey to SLCH by ambulance while Deleta went back for Dean and Christopher.
Rebecca was six weeks early, Jamie said. She weighed 4 pounds 5 ounces and was 16 inches long, with blonde hair and blue eyes.
“I didn’t look pregnant,” Jamie said. “You hear (the stories). You hear them, but I’m one of them. I’m looking at the ambulance, and I’m trying to explain to them I didn’t know. I was shocked. If I’d known, I’d have been getting prenatal care.”
When she was pregnant with Christopher, it was “very clear,” she said. For years, she has been trying to have another baby, but she never got pregnant.
By telling her story, she said, people “are going to know when I’m pushing around a little stroller, it’s my little miracle.”
Jamie doesn’t feel overwhelmed by the sudden responsibility, she said. While she was not prepared for it, “there have been blessings poured in left and right.”
Two baby showers are planned, and the Pregnancy Alternative Center in Lebanon has helped her out too.
Rebecca’s first name comes from a grandmother on her father’s side. “Lynn” is from her mother’s side of the family. “Jane” was Christopher’s idea at the hospital.
Rebecca’s father, Dean, is a lathe operator with Weyerhaeuser Foster Division. He has worked there for 20 years. Jamie has worked at Figaro’s since Dec. 26.
Paternal grandparents include Frank and Teena Jurica of Sweet Home.
She makes “hardly a peep,” Jamie said. “She’s very quiet. I call her my little squeaker.
“I’m still in awe. People are like, ‘I still can’t believe it.'”