Having a baby in a veterinary clinic did not factor into Kelly Dykstra’s birthing plan.
But that’s where she was on a September morning—at Cedar Animal Hospital, where she works as a vet technician—when she suddenly felt “kind of off.”
She went to the bathroom and, moments later, gazed in shock at the infant son she had just delivered on the floor. Elliot Albert Dykstra, born three months early and weighing a pound and a half, opened his left eye and looked up at his mom. “He was tiny. He was just so small,” Kelly said. “But he was awake and he was peeking at me.”