Child Birth

I was going to put a comment on my brothers post about his upcoming child but thought that I better share this story with everyone. I experienced the child birth?problem 5 years ago. My wife was pregnant with my 1st son and was due the middle of September. We are lucky to have a cabin not far from where we love to hunt, so its nice to go up there and hunt while the ladies relax at the cabin. Unfortunately it is still 40 min away from the closest hospital and really about an hour and a half from a decent hospital. We figured since she wasn’t due until the middle to end of September that we would be OK to go up the cabin over Labor Day weekend. It was September 1st?it was a real nice day we had been hunting Elk for a few days and hadn’t had any success. We were not seeing any sign or anything that made us feel that we were getting into the Elk. We decided since the Elk hunt wasn’t going so well we would head over to a ridge we love to hunt deer on and see if we can fill our deer tags. Our family has been hunting this ridge for 30 + years. It is a Spike bull only area in Utah meaning you can only shoot a Spike bull or Cow while hunting up there. I set up on the ridge early and waited for a nice buck to pass. About mid morning I heard one of my most favorite sounds, an Elk bugled in the distance. I couldn’t resist I instantly went from hunting deer to Elk. I pulled out my bugle and fired off a response. He quickly answered. Within minutes I had a 5×5 bull coming up the hill towards me. He had a rag horn 3×4 following him. Since it was a Spike Bull unit I couldn’t shoot them but played with them for about an hour. He would come within 5 yards and I would move and he would run down the hill, I would then bugle and he would stop, bugle back and start up the hill again. It was awesome. He finally tired of my games and moved on. I climbed to the top of the hill and called my wife to see how she was doing. She jokingly told me she was in labor and I needed to hurry back. We both laughed and I continued to hunt. Later that evening we headed back the the cabin to relax. We all watched a movie and then went to bed. I was just about to fall asleep when my wife shouts “My water broke”. Boy did the games begin. I ran out of the room woke the rest of my family and we jumped in my dads car and headed to the hospital. My dad was driving and we were in the back seat. We got about 20 minutes away when my wife said she could feel the head?coming?out. I was now on the phone with 911 and starting to think I was going to end up delivering my 1st son. 911 dispatch sent an ambulance our way and we ended up meeting them?at a highway underpass. They quickly got her and?I in the ambulance and off we went to the hospital. Needless to say my son was born about 10 min after that in the ambulance. What an experience, all turned out well but my wife will never let me forget that day. My wife now tells me that she knew she was in labor but kept telling herself that?she wasn’t because she didn’t want to ruin my hunt. I love her for that, but we both agree that next time it’s more important to be close to a hospital. We have a lifetime to hunt but experiencing the wonderful process of child birth doesn’t come that often.