Last week, while Yitzhak “Izzy” Bendahan and his wife Yael were at their home in Beit Shemesh, Yael, 36, who was in the advanced stages of her seventh pregnancy, began feeling contractions and her water broke.
Because of the urgency and the heavy traffic on the way to Jerusalem, the two set out for Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in a standby ambulance that Yitzhak kept at home as part of his role with Magen David Adom.
“Yael was lying in the back on the ambulance stretcher, and I was driving,” Yitzhak said.
But at a certain point, Yael warned him that the birth was progressing, and Yitzhak realized they would not make it to the hospital in time.
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Yitzhak “Izzy” Bendahan, his wife Yael and their baby daughter Liora(
(Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
“We were only 10 minutes from the hospital, and the recommendation is always to get to the hospital, but the birth had really begun, and I understood we wouldn’t make it,” he said.
“I told him that either I do it alone while he drives, or he stops and helps me,” Yael added. “This was my seventh birth, and I knew what I was feeling — I knew this was really active labor.”
At that point, Yitzhak, who during his 10 years with MDA had already experienced many births, began delivering his wife’s baby.
“Beit Shemesh is one of the cities with the highest birthrates in the country, and over the years I have handled about 150 births in the area,” he said.
A short time later, their daughter was born inside the ambulance.
“I had never had the chance to deliver my own son or daughter. The birth went smoothly, and the baby came out healthy and whole,” Yitzhak said. “We have been married for almost 18 years, and beyond being a couple, we are the best friends in the world. Someone who has never experienced a birth, and suddenly is asked to deliver his wife’s baby — that can be frightening for him. But I have done this many times. I have experienced every possible childbirth complication, and I was not afraid. Alongside the excitement of the birth itself, the fact that I was privileged to take part in my daughter’s birth with my own hands is a moment I will never forget.”
'The fact that I was privileged to take part in my daughter’s birth with my own hands is a moment I will never forget'
(Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)
“In the other births too, he was there for me in the delivery room, and this time as well, when we were in the middle of the road, it was truly an experience,” Yael added.
The couple named their daughter Liora.
“She was born during the Nine Days — Tisha B’Av is a dark period for the Jewish people, and today we too are in a time of war, when the world around us is a little dark. She is the light that illuminated the darkness for us. She is already bringing a lot of light and joy to the family, especially to her 6-year-old sister, who finally got another sister.”
The couple has six other children.