Even though she was due to have her own child any minute, when Dr. Amanda Hess heard that the baby of one of her patients was in distress, she threw on another hospital gown and got to work.
The Kentucky OB/GYN had just been induced at Kentucky's Frankfort Regional Medical Center in late July when she sprang into action, rushing to Leah Halliday Johnson's hospital room. "I said, you know, I'm not on call, I'm here in a gown, but I think we ought to have the baby," Hess told NBC News. The baby, Halliday Johnson's fourth, needed immediate attention, and not long after it was born and receiving care, Hess' contractions began in earnest. "I appreciate what she did for my family, and it speaks a lot to who she is as a woman and mother as well as a doctor," Halliday Johnson told NBC News. "It makes you feel better, bringing a baby girl into the world, knowing there are women like her willing to step up like that."
Hess had an inkling she'd be working late into her pregnancy, but didn't know she would wind up delivering a baby moments before she had her own. "Delivering other peoples' babies is something I do every day," she said. "And I'm more comfortable with delivering someone else's baby than my own, for sure."
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