A woman in labor at a New York City hospital didn't hesitate to volunteer herself as a wedding officiant when she learned another woman in labor nearby was desperately trying to get married before their baby arrived.
Sushma Dwivedi Jindal says she had just gotten an epidural as she prepared to give birth to her second son at New York Presbyterian Weill-Cornell Medical Center on May 16. Her anesthesiologist casually mentioned a couple down the hall was looking for the hospital chaplain so that they could be married before the baby came.
"They had originally planned on getting married in a few days and her water broke," Jindal told NBC News. "Nobody could find the chaplain and the staff was stressing trying to hunt him down. The couple was desperate to get married before the baby came, and the clock was ticking!"
As luck would have it, Jindal, a marketing executive, had recently gotten ordained online for a side project, and offered to help.
"My epidural was now complete so I couldn’t get up and I was starting to get loopy, but you better believe I was going to help this mom out," said Jindal.
The labor and delivery staff made the wedding ceremony as special as it could be for Brianna and Casey Walko under the circumstances. They did Brianna's hair and found her flowers, and they made Casey a bow out of baby hats.
The staff arranged a processional from the Walko's room to Jindal's, and one of the nurses even wrote a poem.
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A few hours later, both women had their respective children. Jindal had a boy named Nayan, and Brianna Walko had a girl named Riley.
"I can’t say I’ve ever had a chance to actively choose to insert myself into someone else’s love story," she wrote on Facebook. "I was about to bring life into the world and I’ll be damned if this kid didn’t learn that when given the option, he should always choose love. It takes so little to do something kind for someone else."
