When planning for the arrival of her 7th child, Ariel Tyson had hoped to have a home water birth. And while things didn’t go quite according to plan, it’s safe to say, she kind of got one.
“Caught my 9 lb baby by myself over the toilet after a 50 min labor,” Ariel captioned a now-viral TikTok video.
@arielctyson Talk about the biggest shock of my life! Pregnant to delivering my own baby, to finding out it was our first girl. #arielctyson #arielandmichael #baby #laboranddelivery #pregnancy #mom #reaction #momdad #birth #parents #fyp ♬ original sound – ❦
Better yet, the moment was caught on camera, and it’s the kind of joy you can’t help but watch over and over—which is why it’s racked up over 26.2 million views on TikTok. Ariel, while catching her baby on the toilet, looks up at her husband Michael in complete shock.
“What an amazing moment,” one person wrote in the comments. “The expressions on both of your faces…priceless and total love!”
When the 35-year-old mom of six boys went into labor around 2:30 a.m., she called her midwife and let her husband Michael keep sleeping—assuming she had a long night of contractions ahead of her.
“I thought ‘What’s the point? We’re just getting started.’ And I prefer to be alone in the first part of labor,” Ariel told TODAY. “But things got intense really fast.”
Luckily, Michael heard his wife moaning and joined her in the bathroom. He tried setting up the birthing pool, but there wasn’t enough time. At 3:20 a.m. their 7th baby was born.
“I sat down on the toilet because I thought I had to poop,” Ariel recalls. “Then I realized I was having the baby.”
“I just reached down with my hands and grabbed her,” she says. “I’m so happy we caught my reaction on camera.”
As if catching her own baby on the toilet wasn’t a shock enough, the couple, who are parents to six boys, didn’t know the gender of their baby.
Ariel caught the moment on film when she looked down to learn that baby number 7 was a girl!
