# What Happened There are two interesting things about the birth of our baby girl eight weeks ago. When labor started early Saturday evening, we were up at the cabin, three and a half hours from home. Trixie started having laborish something-or-others every now and again, the kind of thing that often (we’ve been told) doesn’t really lead to anything. But we decided to come home anyway; if it was nothing, we would be home in time to get a normal sleep; if it was _not_ nothing, well, we would actually be near our birth center, which would represent an enormous boon, as they say. We left the cabin at 5:30, called the midwife on the way, and contractions and vomiting steadily increased in frequency as we drove. They were about seven minutes apart, and we were still about an hour from home, when we got a flat tire. I pulled over and emptied the entire contents of the trunk onto the shoulder of the freeway as the last of the evening light slithered away. It was while marshaling the requisite supplies — spare tire, car jack — that my tire iron missed roll call. I realized it was sitting in my garage at home. Having given Trixie a kiss, I ran down the off-ramp towards a nearby gas station. “Do you have a tire iron?” I asked the cashier. “No,” she said, without interest or hesitation. “Do you know who would have one?” “Nobody’s open on a Sunday evening,” she said. I walked back outside, pulled out my phone and turned to roadside assistance, and finally got through to someone. “What’s your insurance policy number?” “I don’t know.” “Okay, we can proceed but I’ll have to charge you, and you can try to get your insurance company to reimburse you later on.” For some reason it suddenly became, for a little while, ridiculously important to avoid possibility of days spent in phoning and emailing my car insurance company to get reimbursed $125. “Let me get that policy number and I’ll call you back,” I said. After a few minutes on hold, I finally came to my senses. _My wife is in labor,_ I thought: _I don’t care. That card is just screaming to be played._ I strode back into the gas station and looked the cashier in the eye. “Look,” I said, “my wife is in labor and sitting on the side of the freeway a quarter mile thataway in a car with a flat tire. I need a tire iron.” “Oh my God,” she said, and disappeared into a back room. One contraction later, I was running back towards the car with a tire iron in my hand. Just as I was finishing the tire change, a sixteen year-old kid pulled up behind me. “Hey man, do you need any help?” You gotta love the rural Midwestern youth, whose idea of fun, even in the 21st century, is to cruise the highways looking for people to pull out of ditches and things. “You’re a little late,” I said. “Anyway, my wife is in labor, I just finished here, and I have to get going.” “Woah! How far apart are contractions?” “Seven minutes.” “You know Princeton hospital is right over there, right?” He pointed over to his shoulder, where Princeton hospital was, in fact, blinking in the twilight just on the other side of the freeway. _How do I explain this_, I thought; _Princeton hospital is not in our birth plan._ “Just turn on your blinkers,” I said, there’s a good chap, and back up behind me on the shoulder so I can get back to the off-ramp and fill up my tire.” I’ve never had a flat tire before in my life. I get my first one when my wife is in labor. That’s the first interesting thing. So after swapping out the tire, we were on our way again, and we made it home without further complications. On the advice of the midwife, Trixie had a bath, was able to keep a bit of food down, and then got in bed. Contractions promptly slowed to the point where, for a couple of hours, she was even able to catch a bit of sleep in between them. Then, at 2:00 AM, she started having much, much stronger contractions. Shortly after 3:00 AM I called the midwife back again, and she said it was time to come in to the birth center. It took us fifteen minutes to get Trixie downstairs, into the car, and for me to get the frozen berries, phone chargers and clothing all ready to go. At 3:20 we were on the road, Trixie kneeling on the rear passenger seat, facing the back of the car. Just five minutes away from the birth center, Trixie finished a contraction and informed me in a tone of mild surprise that the baby’s head had emerged. I reached around back with my right arm, while driving, and sure enough, through Trixie’s robe I felt a little head, hanging down and waiting patiently. One minute later, the baby slid out onto the seat of the car and made a single little squawk up at us. It was 3:35 AM. We were doing 65 miles per hour. Our occupations and positions kept us from holding hands, but I said, “Oh, Jess,” and she said she was doing fine and sounded relieved. And that was the second interesting thing. * * * On Friday, May 10, I wrote in our journal: > “Today we watched a movie, based on a true story, that was radically more violent than anything I have seen in a long time, perhaps ever. The knives and the razor wire came out; I writhed, I curled up, I looked away, I looked back; I was a wreck. The most affecting thing about it, though — the thing that really wrecked me in the moment — was the knowledge that these were things that really happened, real things, which have taken place and will continue to take place, and I could not face them. There’s something in me that just will not come to terms with that reality, which thinks only the language of the sanitized, the abstract and the harmless. It’s something I have known about myself for a long time. I suspect that I cannot write — I cannot tell stories — I cannot say what really needs to be said, because I am unwilling to experience all that is true in life.” *** Thanks for listening to Howell Creek Radio. I’m Joel Dueck. I would like to take this opportunity to retroactively announce my hiatus from podcasting, which lasted for several weeks, and just ended. I was going to announce it ahead of time but...I just...couldn’t, for some reason. Maybe it’s bad for business, but my writing is like the seasons, and there are dry spells. So maybe it’s time we all accepted that, and looked on the bright side, which is that the rain always comes back eventually. Seriously. It always does. This week’s episode is an expanded version of a blog post title _Habemus Papoose_, which I posted the day after Sylvia’s birth. There’s a link to that post, and a photo of Sylvia Fern in the show notes at . You can also sign up to get a short, sweet, beautifully crafted email whenever a new episode comes out, so you won’t miss anything, ever. The closing music is by Dry the River, and those adorable hiccups are a recording of Sylvia when she was 4 days old. Have another helping. You know you want to. ## Synopsis Radio address for September 14, 2013. This episode draws from and adds a bit of dimension to [_Habemus Papoose_][jdhp], in which I briefly described our daughter’s birth at 65 MPH. Sylvia is doing beautifully. Those are her hiccups at the end, recorded when she was 4 days old. Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to _retroactively_ announce my hiatus from podcasting, which lasted for several weeks, and just ended. I was going to announce it ahead of time but...I just...couldn’t, for some reason. Maybe it’s bad for business, but my writing is like the seasons, and there are dry spells. So maybe it’s time we all accepted that, and looked on the bright side, which is that the rain always comes back eventually. [jdhp]: http://jdueck.net/article/habemus-papoose