When Philadelphia attorney Marni Jo Snyder's water broke in the middle of a preliminary hearing for a murder trial last week, she was not surprised.
Snyder was 38 weeks pregnant with her first child, and she had joked with her family and friends that she hoped she wouldn't give birth in a courtroom.
Still, Snyder, 39, was not expecting to go into labor when she felt the tell-tale signs of her amniotic sac rupturing in the courtroom of Municipal Court Judge James M. DeLeon. Snyder and her husband and legal partner, Stephen Stewart, Jr., 32, were in the middle of defending a client who had been accused of murder when the moment came.
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Luckily, Snyder told TODAY Parents, she was sitting down at the time, and her husband was by her side. "I didn't panic because he was there to calm me down," said Snyder. "I was not alone for a moment.
"He's a very talented lawyer, so it is always a blessing to have him on a case with me," she added, "but this was a double whammy blessing."
After checking to make sure she was OK, Stewart took over, passing a note to the court staff to let them know the situation. Within minutes, Snyder said, the whole courthouse knew what was going on, with reactions that ranged from asking if they should call 9-1-1 to asking if Snyder could finish the rest of the hearing.
Because she was not in pain or experiencing contractions, Snyder told the judge she wanted to move forward without taking a recess and finish hearing evidence in the case since they only had one witness left.
"The judge was kind of freaking out," said Snyder with a chuckle.
Once the hearing was over, Snyder finally stood up — which resulted in a gush that soaked her shoes as she walked out of the room — and then traveled the five blocks to the hospital in downtown Philadelphia.
"There were women coming into the hospital in sweats and pandemic clothes," said Snyder. We were the only ones coming into Labor and Delivery in a custom suit and a dress and ruined shoes."
After she had left, the judge addressed the courtroom, according to a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter who was covering the hearing for the newspaper.
“It’s strange that in a courtroom with such sadness, there’s life,” the judge observed, according to the Inquirer.
Snyder's birth experience was uneventful after its unexpected beginning: Stephen Stewart, III, came safely into the world the next day, October 15.
"Motherhood is awesome. He's absolutely awesome. He's a really good baby," Snyder said.
"I always figured he would come to court with us eventually, but I thought it would be a little bit different," she laughed. "Something more along the lines of 'Bring Your Son to Work Day.' But this worked out perfectly."
