"Then the helicopter arrived and once I was on board I just closed my eyes," she said.
Mrs Gibberd was tearful as she recalled the dramatic experience.
"I didn't know if the baby was still alive or not, because I couldn't feel any movements."
Mrs Gibberd's mother, Maree Jermyn, lives in Taradale and met her daughter at Hawkes Bay Hospital after she was airlifted by the Lowe Corporation rescue helicopter.
Her husband Chris quickly organised care for their four children (Amy, 6, Samuel, 5, Nicole, 3, and Caleb, 18 months) before driving 180km to join his wife in Hastings.
"They didn't know what they were getting," said Mrs Jermyn.
"But when they put her on the machine, there was a little heart beat going boom, boom, boom.
"They got a healthy mother and a healthy baby."
Mrs Gibberd said contractions began soon after.
"When I arrived, they did the scan and were going to monitor the bleeding overnight.
"But overnight the labour progressed and I ended up delivering the baby naturally at 7 the next morning.
"After four caesareans, they never thought that would be possible," she said.
Yesterday, 3-day-old and 1.5kg Maggie Rose was stable in the special care baby unit.
The clinical nurse manager of the unit and paediatrics, Michelle Robertson, said the emergency transport had played an important part in saving Maggie Rose.
"Wairoa wouldn't have been able to do it up there," she said.
"There would have been a 40-minute to an hour delay if we had gone up there.
"That's a long time for a baby. They need to be in the right environment, with breathing support and all the right facilities that they need."
Maggie Rose was being fed 1ml of her mother's milk every four hours and would stay in the hospital until at least her due date, the end of August.
It was not yet known what caused the bleeding that led to her premature birth.
APN
