Thuy Huynh's first contractions came after she and husband Bao Dang had been sitting in their car for more than five hours awaiting testing at a COVID drive-through clinic on Wednesday.
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Nearly at the front of the line, they had a tough decision to make - to make a dash to the hospital and lose their space, or to get tested first. Either way there was an issue as they were stuck in a line of cars winding their way through the pop-up clinic at Figtree and couldn't easily get out.
"I thought 'this can't be happening'," Bao said. "I got out of the car and walked up and told staff 'I think my wife is going into labour'. They said they would get traffic out of the way if needed, but we were nearly at the front so decided to wait it out."
Fortunately it proved to be a false alarm, which is what the couple thought was happening again after Thuy started having contractions while watching the fireworks on television on New Year's Eve.
They decided to head into Wollongong Hospital's birthing unit anyway, and only just made it in time.
"We walked through the door of the hospital around 1am and Thuy said she couldn't walk any more but we kept going, one step at a time until we got to the birthing unit," Bao said.
"A midwife helped Thuy up onto a bed and as soon as she examined her we could see Adelynn's head coming out.
"The midwife told Thuy to push on the next contraction and she did and out came our daughter at 1.24am.
"Thuy spent 16 hours in labour for our first child so it was a totally different experience."
The arrival of their second daughter - the first to be born at a hospital in the Illawarra for 2021 - was a great start to the new year.
"We wanted our baby to be born in 2021, not 2020," Bao said. "She only just made it."
As for many business owners, last year was a challenge for the couple who run the Vietnamese eatery Saigon Senses in Wollongong Central.
"We had to shut down during the lockdown for a little bit and then we started doing online delivery," Bao said. "We just went with the flow and thought, if people can't come to us, we'll go to them."
Lockdown was a blessing in other ways, Bao said with a laugh. "We had to find something to do in March/April - nine months later we have a new daughter. I think maybe they'll be a lot of babies born around this time."
Around 2500 babies have been born at Wollongong Hospital this year, with about 1150 born in the new $2.2 million birthing suite which opened in July.
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