A determined 8-month-old pregnant woman named Tamiah Brevard-Rodriguez gave birth to her son on the way to the hospital and she successfully defended her PhD thesis on the same day.
44-year-old Tamiah Tamiah was preparing for her doctoral defense and was almost at the school when her water unexpectedly broke. Rushing back to the hospital with her partner, her plans took an extraordinary turn as she gave birth to her baby in the passenger seat of her car.
She said she made plans a month before her dissertation which she named “Operation Dissertation Before Baby,” the plan included her completing her dissertation and having her baby in time to celebrate graduation and the summer with family.
“Both were my 40th birthday presents to myself. I said, I need to finish this doctorate, and I need to have my last baby,” she said.
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Tamiah said when she and her husband got to the hospital with their baby, doctors and nurses checked him out and they claimed she had already done most of the birthing process in the car and she just needed to rest.
She stated that her partner discussed rescheduling the meeting with her mentor. However, she worried if they rescheduled, it would not happen in the time frame she needed to graduate this year.
“As I was laying there, I was just thinking to myself, ‘I can do it. The baby’s here. Let’s just get this over with,” she said. Tamiah said her partner brought her clothes, a laptop, and a makeup bag and after she took her map and ate, she was ready to defend her thesis.
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She said as she logged onto her laptop from her hospital bed, the only person who knew about her delivery earlier that morning was her mentor who also did not want anyone to give her sympathy, so he kept quiet.
Tamiah said she gave well well-detailed presentation with the Rutgers University background which lasted for twenty minutes and when it was over, she took down her Rutgers background on Zoom and revealed she was in the hospital.
She said she said she declined to share the news until after her defense to make sure the committee was not swayed by what she had just been through. Tamia bagged her PhD in Education at Rutgers University, United States.
Tamiah’s dissertation focused on the beauty pressures placed on Black college women while enrolled at predominantly White educational institutions.
“In my study, a lot of Black girls said, ‘I cannot go to school in pajamas though I see my other peers go to school in pajamas or in sweatshirts and baggy clothes.’ They always have to be presentable, because for them being presentable equates to them being capable,” she said.
Tamiah earned her bachelor’s degree in Communication from the Rutgers School of Communication and Information and a masters degree in higher education administration atNew York University both in the United States.
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