Far from help, a baby is born

Callum Wieland. Photo / Queensland Times

When Kristie Wieland begged her husband to stay with her on Tuesday in case floods stopped him getting home, she never imagined he would be delivering their child eight hours later.

With their neighbourhood in Brightview, Queensland, surrounded by floodwater, Mrs Wieland and her husband, Andy, had just returned from picking up supplies at the corner shop when their own drama began to unfold.

"I got out of the car and my waters broke," Mrs Wieland, 31, told Sydney's Daily Telegraph.

The couple, despite being cut off from medical help, remained calm and quickly put a new birth plan in place.

They asked neighbours to look after their 20-month-old daughter, Keonie, as they transformed their bathroom into a makeshift birthing suite and called emergency services for advice.

"I don't think we panicked at all. I was just thankful it was our second child, so we had been through labour once before and if we had to do it alone then that was just the way it had to be," Mrs Wieland said.

"They said to find some shoelaces and sterilise them so we could use them to tie the umbilical cord. Luckily one of our neighbours had just bought a new pair of shoes, so she went and grabbed the laces for us."

The couple made countless calls to emergency services for advice but kept getting cut off because of patchy reception and an overloaded network.

They knew they had to go it alone when they were told a rescue helicopter could not reach them because of the bad weather.

Eight hours later, and two weeks early, Mr Wieland delivered his son - Callum Jack Wieland, weighing 3.52kg.

"Andy did an amazing job, I couldn't have asked for a better midwife. It's a day we won't forget," Mrs Wieland said.

Mr Wieland was full of admiration for his wife, saying, "With our first baby she was definitely calling out for pain relief. She couldn't have anything this time, but she still did an incredible job."

Last night Mrs Wieland's brother Warren Donovan, who lives in Sydney, spoke of the family's panic after learning she was marooned and in labour.

"The last contact we had with her was very early in the day," he said. "We were pretty stressed as you can imagine. Mum was really upset."

Mrs Wieland tried to keep her family updated through Facebook and at midday wrote: "Just waiting and hoping for emergency/medical help to arrive but it is absolutely bucketing down. I don't think choppers can fly in this sort of weather."

She managed to call her mother after Callum was born to share the good news.

"We were a bit happier then, relieved," Mr Donovan said.

Mrs Wieland was finally airlifted to St Andrew's Private Hospital in Ipswich on Wednesday morning.

Sounding tired but happy she said last night: "We're doing really well, we'd love to share this news with the whole world."