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A Michigan couple received an unexpected delivery in the parking lot of a McDonald’s last month. Their baby girl was born a week early, earning a unique nickname — and people are “lovin’ it.”
Alyce Rotunda, 32, was expecting her fourth child in late August and had already been sent home from the hospital once, on Aug. 8, with what doctors called a “false alarm.” But three days later, on her birthday, contractions returned and didn’t stop.
Late that night, Rotunda called her mother to watch her three children – Genesis, 7, Kevin III, 4, and Boone, 2. She and her husband, Kevin, then took off for the hospital in Kalamazoo, a 45-minute drive from their home in Centreville.
“If I had to have the baby in the car, then that’s what I was going to do,” Rotunda told Fox News Digital.
When they realized they wouldn’t make it to the hospital, they told a 911 dispatcher they would be at a gas station.
But even though it was nearly 3 a.m., the gas station was lit up and busy, so her husband made the decision to travel a bit farther to a closed McDonald’s in Schoolcraft.
“The pain makes you focused on what’s happening and I only had a slight moment of thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, can I do this?’ as we were pulling into McDonald’s,” Rotunda recalled.
“You just do what you have to do,” she continued. “There’s no sense in fighting anything.”
Even her husband, who is typically queasy, rose to the occasion and caught the baby himself, she said.
“Anyone who knows my husband knows that, if you talk about a nosebleed for too long, he gets nauseous. Any blood, anything like that, you see him go white,” Rotunda said.
“So for him to go from that, to catching his own child — I am so thankful.”
Rotunda said she sighed a huge breath of relief once she heard Matilda let out a cry and saw that she was alert and breathing.
Then, the attention shifted to Rotunda, who has Type 1 diabetes, a history of hemorrhaging and whose four pregnancies were all high-risk. The new baby was initially scheduled for an induction the following week, just as Rotunda’s other three children had been.
Paramedics arrived about 10 minutes after the delivery and took the family to the hospital for evaluation.
“I am just so incredibly thankful and blessed that there were no complications for the baby or for me, and the whole experience is wild, but I’m just very thankful,” she said. “I wanted her on my birthday, but she decided to wait three hours, and she gave me a story regardless.”
Matilda’s memorable entrance quickly earned her a nickname.
Matilda’s memorable entrance quickly earned her a nickname. It was her brother-in-law who coined “McTilly,” a twist on Tilly, the baby’s given nickname.
“He was talking to my husband, and they were talking about nicknames, and he came up with McTilly, and he just thought it was the best thing ever,” Rotunda said. “Everyone gets a kick out of it.”
Even the local McDonald’s embraced the story, sharing a post on Facebook to celebrate the new arrival.
“Alyce and Kevin Rotunda got more than they ordered in the parking lot at the Schoolcraft McDonald’s,” it said. “During the early morning hours of Aug. 11, they welcomed their beautiful baby girl, Matilda, under the Golden Arches!”
The post added, “Alyce and Kevin, we’re glad to know you’ll have a story to tell for years to come. And as for baby Matilda? She’s already part of the McFamily!”
Fox News Digital reached out to McDonald’s for further comment.
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