WNY family welcomes ‘Beach House baby’ delivered by firefighters in Outer Banks vacation rental
BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — A late-August vacation to the Outer Banks for a Niagara Falls family of three turned into a return trip home nearly two weeks later as a family of four.
Alyssa Narkiewicz, who works for Thermo Fisher Scientific, and her fiancé David Zajac, a Niagara City councilmember and ECC bowling coach, welcomed a baby girl on Aug. 26 after an eventful few hours at their rental house in Corolla, North Carolina.
The couple’s vacation group, which consisted of eight adults and 10 kids, began their vacation the day before.
“It started off as a normal vacation,” Zajac recalled. “That was our second time going to the Outer Banks … that Sunday we got there was just kind of to unpack and kind of just a relax day at the house.”
Narkiewicz was just shy of 35 weeks pregnant with the couple’s second daughter at the time. She initially thought she was sore from moving things into the house and unpacking for the vacation, but Zajac said it didn’t take long for his fiancé to realize it was something more.
Zajac said just after 1 a.m. on Aug. 26 — less than 12 hours after checking into the vacation rental — Narkiewicz was feeling discomfort. As they prepared to drive to Outer Banks Health Hospital, nearly an hour away, Narkiewicz’s water broke. The couple called 911.
Narkiewicz said her doctor gave her the OK to go on vacation.
“Everyone kept putting it in the atmosphere: ‘Pack extra, bring a car seat, bring a diaper bag just in case,'” she said. “We said, ‘No, we’re not going to jinx ourselves.’ The doctor cleared me, so we thought it wouldn’t happen, but… it did.”
Corolla Fire and Rescue responded to the 911 call to transfer Narkiewicz to the hospital. To their surprise, Zajac said, just seven minutes later, the couple’s daughter was delivered. Emersyn Mae Zajac was born at 2:43 a.m. on the floor of the beach house.
Narkiewicz said she was overwhelmed in the moment.
“I was kind of in panic mode because I had my scheduled C-section for the end of September, so I was not preparing for a natural childbirth — mentally prepared for, I should say,” she said. “It was just, ‘OK, she’s coming,’ and there’s no turning back now. I thought we’d be able to make it to the hospital, but once my water broke, I knew there was no turning back or no time to wait the 40 minutes down the road to the hospital. It just happened in the house.”
Zajac said because the Outer Banks hospital isn’t equipped to handle babies born before 36 weeks or under five pounds, Emersyn was transferred to Sentara Princess Anne Hospital in Virginia Beach, where she was in the NICU for 12 days until she could ride back to Niagara Falls with her family. The family got home on Sunday.
“Our daughter Paislee, she was happy to be there because she got to miss the first two days of school,” Zajac joked. “But by Saturday when they cleared Emersyn to go home, we were all aces to hit the road and drove through the night to be able to get here.”
Narkiewicz said having a younger sister around has been “quite an adjustment” for Paislee, since Emersyn was in the hospital for the first 12 days.
“Technically, we didn’t have a baby for her there physically to see at first, until we could bring her to the hospital to visit her,” she said. “Today, she went back to school, so she’s back in her little routine, but she’s been a great help so far to help get her bottle and snuggle her and everything like that. I think ‘big sister role’ is coming into effect.”
Zajac said Paislee has been very happy for everyone to meet Emersyn.
Narkiewicz’s doctors referred to their newborn daughter as “Beach House Baby.”
Adam Duke is a digital contributor who joined WIVB in 2021. See more of his work here.
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