Babies arriving unexpectedly – and quickly — always make for good stories, and certainly Endeavor Health Edward Hospital in Naperville over the years has seen more than a few delivered en route.
But I’d venture a guess the staff there has never filled out a birth certificate with the name of the delivery facility listed as “the stoplight of Gartner and Washington.”
“It all happened within five seconds,” recalls Naperville resident Charles Solar, who had hit a red light while rushing wife Ginger to the hospital Thursday morning as her contractions became closer together.
“Like most guys I am very able to focus on one singular task, which in this case was driving,” he said, until he got to the stoplight and “had a chance to take my eyes off the road and look over at my wife.”
“That’s when I saw a baby’s forehead on my front seat.”
At this point who knows what most of us would have done. Pull over? Run the light? Panic? Pass out?
Thankfully, Charles Solar did none of the above. With his foot still on the brake, he reached over with both hands, cupped the baby’s head and guided his third child into the world.
Then he turned the newborn over to make sure he was breathing before placing their son on his wife’s lap.
Just as the light turned green.
“It did not even cross my mind what had just happened,” Solar told me on Monday. “I just knew I had to get to the hospital. So after delivering the baby, my focus was back on driving … I got there in two minutes.”
Fortunately, Ginger doesn’t recall a whole lot about that harrowing – and painful – 12-minute ride.
After walking the couple’s oldest child to her first day of first grade that morning, she does remember feeling unwell upon returning to the house, then sitting down for a few minutes and growing more concerned as what she hoped were false labor pains became more intense.
Because the baby was not due for another three weeks, “I didn’t even have anything packed to go,” she said. But when those contractions started rolling over each other, she told her husband, “It’s time … now!”
Once in the SUV, Ginger recalls turning onto Washington Street from their home on Cimarron Court. But after that, excruciating pain blocked out almost everything else.
Ginger does recall her water breaking – something that had never happened with her other two deliveries – then “a lot of pressure.” She remembers screaming, “he’s out, he’s out,” but not knowing how far the baby had progressed.
“My eyes were closed. I kept screaming … I knew the car had stopped … I did not look down.
“Then I was holding the baby.”
It was around 9:15 a.m. when Baby Solar got the green light to enter this world. At that point, the couple was only two minutes from Edward, where Charles alerted the valet, who notified the ER staff, who called Edward’s OB Rapid Response Team, specially trained for these sort of emergencies.
“It’s not too often but when the call goes out,” said Danielle LaBarre, director of nursing-obstetrics at Endeavor Health Edward Hospital, “they drop everything and go.”
No longer in agony and wanting to capture such a remarkable moment, Ginger grabbed her cellphone and took a photo of the baby on her lap in the SUV before the two were gently placed on a hospital gurney.
“I have no idea,” she said, “who cut the (umbilical) cord.”
Turns out that task was performed by the ER staff, and because the baby was having trouble breathing, according to the parents, he was whisked to the NICU.
It was only after she and her son were given the OK by doctors that Ginger finally was able to relax. As for Charles, who had been operating on pure adrenaline, “there were some tears” after learning mother and baby were fine.
The little boy, who weighed six pounds, five ounces and came home on Sunday, was named Patrick after his paternal grandfather. And for his middle name, his parents chose Gartner – which had certainly “not been on our short list,” noted Charles – but seemed a perfect way to forever memorialize his unusual birth.
According to LaBarre, babies born “in the field” are indeed rare, with just three such deliveries connected with Endeavor Health Edward Hospital in 2023. And as far back as this longtime nurse can recall, there were none born at a stoplight as it turned from red to green.
Charles’ mother Sam credits her son’s stoic, calm personality, for the way he handled this unlikely adventure. Her husband Patrick, once a Boy Scout leader in Sycamore, points out his Eagle Scout son certainly was well-versed in how to “be prepared.”
As for the new dad himself: “I had no choice,” he said matter of factly. “That baby needed to come out. I did what I had to do. And thankfully it turned out good.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com