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Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez, a doctorate student at Rutgers University in New Jersey, was preparing to defend her doctoral thesis on March 25 when she suddenly went into labor.
Brevard-Rodriguez, who wasn't due to give birth for another month, headed to the hospital but didn't make it in time and gave birth to her second child in the car.
When she arrived at the hospital, doctors examined her newborn, Enzo, and gave him a clean bill of health.
While lying in the recovery bed, Brevard-Rodriguez continued making preparations for her thesis defense later that day.
"I was prepared for it. Like what I do is some final touches on the, on the presentation. Like I did the study, I had the support. I just needed to take a nap, take a shower and regroup," Brevard-Rodriguez told WABC.
With some help from the hospital staff, Brevard-Rodriguez could defend her thesis from her maternity bed. She didn't tell the faculty that she had just given birth and successfully defended her thesis.
After she was given the good news, she turned off the Rutgers background on Zoom and revealed that she was in the hospital and had given birth earlier in the day.
Melina Mangin, chair of the Educational Theory, Policy & Administration Department at the Graduate School of Education, was shocked that she could defend her thesis after giving birth to her second child.
"Tamiah had delivered a flawless defense with zero indication that she had just given birth," Mangin told NJ Advanced Media. "She really took the idea of productivity to the next level!"