A Scotch Plains police officer helped a town mom give birth to a healthy baby girl when she went into labor at home.
SCOTCH PLAINS — Rosie Montemaggiore calls herself a planner.
She had just moved to Scotch Plains from London with her husband Joe and 2-year-old daughter Sophia. And in just a few short weeks, the Montemaggiores thought they would welcome their second baby at a nearby hospital. The unpacking was coming along. Things were in order.
Or so they thought.
Around 2 a.m. on Nov. 6, Rosie Montemaggiore started to have contractions. She didn’t wake up her husband for the first few, thinking they were more of the same Braxton-Hicks contractions her doctor had diagnosed her with the day before. No big deal.
But when those contractions became more painful, she decided she better wake him. Minutes later, her water broke.
“At that point, I said I’m going to call you an ambulance,” Joseph Montemaggiore remembers. “And she said no, no, this is normal just call my mom.”
“I didn’t want to make a big deal,” she says now, with a laugh.
A few more minutes later, Rosie Montemaggiore’s tune had changed.
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“She started yelling, ‘Call it back, Joe. Call it back!” Joseph Montemaggiore says.
Fortunately for the pair, the first call had come in to Scotch Plains Police, who had already dispatched their resident baby-delivering cop. Officer Brian Cheney had delivered nine babies previously – six during his 22 years on the force, two when he worked as an EMT and the first back in 1982 when a woman in labor came running into a Radio Shack where he was working part-time while in college.
“I’ve delivered them in the backseat of cars, on couches,” Cheney says. “As soon as they say, ‘I think I’m having my baby now’ they automatically dispatch me!”
Ten minutes after Cheney and Officer James Richie arrived (followed closely behind by Scotch Plains Rescue Squad members Melissa Snyder-Padulsky, Joan Lozowski and Elizabeth Buckridee) baby Vivian Isabelle — 5 lbs. 11 oz. and five weeks early — was born on the floor of the Montemaggiore’s bedroom.
“I was just in disbelief as it was happening,” says Rosie Montemaggiore. “I thought no, no, no, I’m not going to give birth on the bedroom floor. That only happens in movies, and I never believe it when it happens in movies! I’m a planner, but I realized I had to ditch plan A and focus on plan B.”
Cheney has no formal training delivering babies except for his time as an EMT, his previous deliveries and “an interesting video of one they show you when you become a cop,” he says.
“I’m very confident in what I’m doing but scared the whole time I’m doing it. You are hoping for great outcome, but god forbid anything bad happens…” he says, trailing off as he gets choked up.
Now home from the hospital, the Montemaggiores invited the officers and EMTs over to reunite with baby Vivian and say thank you.
“You look much more relaxed!” Richie said to Joe Montemaggiore. “Your eyes aren’t as big!”
Joseph Montemaggiore said he couldn’t breathe easy until the hospital said the baby was okay.
“All I could think was, my home is pretty clean but how sanitary is it for delivering a baby?” he said. “Hence the boiling water comment.”
He’s gotten a bit of a ribbing from friends because he offered to boil Cheney a pot of water at one point.
“Oh yeah, they’ve all been asking me to boil pots of water for them,” he said.
The group passed around baby Vivian, took photos and reminisced about the extra special delivery.
“You guys, all of you guys, are absolutely incredible,” Joe Montemaggiore told them.
And little Vivian has a cousin born on the same day, in very different circumstances — Rosie’s sister delivered via a scheduled C-section also on Nov. 6, which so happens to be Joe’s father’s 76th birthday.
“In one word, we’re grateful,” Rosie Montemaggiore says. “Immensely grateful. We realize just how lucky we were. If it were a few hours later, Joe would have left for work. That he was home, and we got the one police officer who had delivered nine babies before… We feel so lucky.”
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Jessica Remo may be reached at jremo@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessicaRemoNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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