Echt gebeurd:

For miles and miles, Lisa Coukos tried to reassure herself, thinking “You can make it, you can make it,” even as the sharpening pains in her belly told her otherwise.

They felt like more of the false labor pains she’d been experiencing for the last month, she said. But after an hour of contractions while driving south on Interstate 95 in the wee hours yesterday, Coukos realized that the baby who was due New Year’s Day was on its way and she wouldn’t get to the hospital in time. She pulled over the van she was driving and called for help on her cellphone, while her 2-year-old daughter asked repeatedly from the back seat, “Mama OK?”

Less than 10 minutes later, with the soothing voice of a State Police dispatcher on the other end of the line, Coukos, 22, of Lynn, gave birth to a healthy baby boy by herself in the front seat. [The Boston Globe Online]