Priscilla Presley Nearly Didn’t Make It to the Hospital in Time to Give Birth After a Series of Mishaps
As Priscilla Presley approached her due date, she and Elvis Presley went through several test runs to prepare for their daughter Lisa Marie Presley’s birth. When Priscilla went into labor, though, their planning went out the window. A series of mishaps made it so that Priscilla worried she wouldn’t make it to the hospital in time.
Priscilla Presley almost didn’t make it to the hospital before she gave birth
At the end of Priscilla’s pregnancy, Elvis nervously began preparations for her to give birth.
“He arranged his schedule so that he could be home with me at Graceland during the final month,” Priscilla wrote in her book Elvis and Me. “To be absolutely prepared for the big day, we even performed practice drills for the trip to Baptist Memorial Hospital.”
On Feb. 1, 1968, Priscilla woke up and realized her water had broken. Before they headed to the hospital, she calmly applied makeup and fixed her hair. By the time she was ready to leave, though, Elvis was nowhere near prepared to walk out the door. He couldn’t find the cigars he wanted to pass out at the hospital and refused to leave without them. Even after he found them, though, he wasn’t in any hurry.
“Elvis is moving around the house in slow motion while I’m crossing my legs,” Priscilla said in Elvis by the Presleys. “He finally finds his cigars, but now he’s lulling around the kitchen, getting a bite to eat. Elvis is acting like we’ve all the time in the world.”
Finally, they sent out a decoy car to distract fans and began their trip to the hospital.
“Then we took off, but despite the rehearsals, we headed straight for the wrong hospital,” she wrote. “We had changed hospitals, but obviously Jerry [Schilling], who was driving, hadn’t been informed. Charlie Hodge saved the day, convincing Jerry it was Baptist Memorial, not Methodist. Luckily, we arrived in time.”
Priscilla Presley said she felt incredibly close to Elvis after giving birth
Though Priscilla worried she was going to give birth in the car, they made it to the hospital in time. Despite the morning’s chaos, Elvis and Priscilla had a quiet moment with their newborn daughter. Priscilla explained that she felt especially close to her husband at this moment.
“We stayed in each other’s arms for a long time, caressing our infant and each other, a young couple sharing in the first pleasures of parenthood. The man in the hospital room was the man I loved, and will always love. He didn’t have to try to be strong and decisive or sexy, he wasn’t afraid to show his warmth or vulnerability.”
She appreciated that he didn’t feel like a celebrity.
“He didn’t have to act the part of Elvis Presley, superstar,” she wrote. “He was just a man, my husband.”
Elvis was excited to be a father
When Priscilla first told Elvis she was pregnant, he was thrilled. After Priscilla gave birth, she said Elvis seemed awestruck by Lisa Marie.
“Elvis came into the room and kissed me, thrilled that we had a perfectly normal, healthy baby,” she wrote. “He was already in love with her. He watched me holding her and his eyes misted with happiness.”
While he seemed nervous to hold his daughter at first, he quickly grew more comfortable with her.
“He played with her hands, her feet,” Priscilla wrote. “He was in awe, saying, ‘I can’t believe that I made part of this beautiful child.'”
