Best Friends Who Are Doctors Deliver Each Other's Babies: 'It Was an Amazing Experience'

Two Georgia doctors are taking friendship goals to a new level.

In April 2014, Dr. Laquita Martinez helped Dr. Jocelyn Slaughter deliver her first child — a baby girl named Janice. More than three years later, Slaughter returned the favor by delivering Martinez’s third child in October.

“It was an amazing experience. I was definitely nervous … just operating on your best friend is a little scary, but I knew that I had to do it,” Slaughter tells PEOPLE of the caesarean section. “I knew that she wanted me to and that I wouldn’t want her do it with anybody else.”



Dr. Jocelyn Slaughter (left) and Dr. Laquita Martinez in 2014


With her best friend’s help, Martinez gave birth to her baby girl, Kayla, on Oct. 6. She and her husband are also parents to 2-year-old Daniel. Kayla’s birth was especially emotional for Martinez as she lost her son, Ryan, in 2014 at just 26 weeks.

“After I lost my child, Jocelyn really showed herself not only as a friend but a sister,” Martinez told ABC News. “That was probably one of the most difficult things an OB-GYN could do was bury my own child.”

Martinez and Slaughter met in 2008 when they began their residency at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, Slaughter tells PEOPLE. They have remained close ever since, and Slaughter was with Martinez every step of the pregnancy. From hearing the baby’s first heartbeat to the gender reveal, Slaughter says she was always by Martinez’s side.



She says it was an honor to help bring Martinez’s baby girl into the world.

“Afterwards, I walked out of the operating room and started to cry because I was just so happy that I was able to give her her daughter like she gave me my daughter,” Slaughter says.

And Martinez says she was happy to have her best friend by her side.

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“After coming off of a high-risk pregnancy and having two prior C-sections, you want to be with someone that you trust,” she told ABC. “Someone that you know loves you and has your best interest at heart and wants to see the best for you and your child.”

Now Slaughter is pregnant with her second child, and she says she hopes to keep the tradition going.

“Because she just had her baby, she probably won’t be able to deliver mine,” Slaughter says. “But I’m keeping my fingers crossed that she might.”

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