Baby earns nickname ‘little nugget’ after unexpected birth at McDonald’s

A baby girl in Georgia made an unexpected arrival last week, as her mother went into labor while in a McDonald’s bathroom.

Alandria Worthy and her fiancé, Deandre Phillips, were en route to the hospital when Worthy requested they stop so that she could use the McDonald’s restroom. Once she was inside, labor started progressing very quickly.

“I went into the bathroom and my water broke immediately,” Worthy told WXIA. “It was an experience because it happened so fast.”

The restaurant’s manager, Tunisia Woodward, rushed to Worthy’s aid. “I thought they was joking, and I open this door, didn’t see anyone, but I saw feet [under the door],” Woodward said. “I opened, and she was on this toilet lying back, screaming. Then I knew to tell my crew; we’re having a baby today.”

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Employees Sha’querria Kaigler and Keisha Blue-Murray also offered assistance and called 911. Phillips, who had been waiting in the car, came inside when he sensed something was wrong.

“She was on the toilet screaming,” Phillips told WXIA. “I was trying to calm her down because she was frantic. I was like ‘just breathe.’ I got her on the floor, and I took off my clothes. The ladies at McDonald’s were at her front side, holding her hands, I had her feet propped up on my knees. We told her to push three pushes. She was a fighter.”

In just 15 short minutes, Nandi Ariyah Moremi Phillips was born.

Woodward said it was teamwork that led to the successful delivery. “We all are mothers and so we put our heads together and all we needed daddy to do was catch the baby. And he did,” she said of herself and her coworkers. “It’s a day I’ll never forget. I’m going to tell this story from here on out.”

Both Phillips and Worthy credit “divine inspiration” for their stop at McDonald’s, with Phillips noting it would have been much harder for him to help Worthy had she given birth on the road. “I was on the phone with emergency dispatch so they were telling us what to do through the phone. That was the good thing that we had many people there – because I wouldn’t be able to multitask if I was on the highway in the car and the traffic,” he said.

Before the couple left the restaurant, baby Nandi already had a nickname fitting for her birthplace: “little nugget.” “She’s definitely a nugget,” Phillips said. “My parents loved the name, too. We were like, OK, it fits her. My little nugget.”