Roadside service: Baby born along Columbia Falls Stage Road

By JOE SOVA/Hungry Horse News

Maybe a baby boy who was going to be named Columbia was meant to be born on the shoulder of Columbia Falls Stage Road.

Two days before Memorial Day 2008 will be a lifelong memory for Ashley Trautwein and Scott Brown. Just as the sun was coming up on Saturday, May 24, Trautwein gave birth to a healthy Columbia Michael Ulrich Scott Gregory Brown. Unable to make it to the home of Trautwein's parents Ollie and Teryl Trautwein in time for a planned natural child birth, the baby was born in the passenger seat of Trautwein and Brown's Ford Focus.

About 31 weeks into her pregnancy, Trautwein looked into the "midwifery option" of child birth, doing lots of research. She liked what she learned, and her and Brown decided to arrange to have a midwife deliver their baby.

"I'm very much for natural child birth," Trautwein said last week. "It's a lot more personal… Everybody gets to stay right here [at home]."

"We were a lot more comfortable" with natural child birth, Brown added, and the delivery was planned for Trautwein's parents' home on Columbia Falls Stage Road a couple of miles south of Columbia Falls. Midwife Melissa Brake planned to meet Trautwein and Brown there for the event.

But the delivery didn't go as planned. The 23-year-old Trautwein awakened at 3:45 a.m. on May 24 at their home on Fifth Avenue East in Kalispell with her first contractions. She decided "by 4 o'clock they were pretty serious," she said. So they began the 15-minute drive about 4:30 a.m.

While he drove, Brown was on the phone with Brake, getting instructions. But the baby wouldn't wait, and Brake began driving from Trautwein's parents' home to meet Trautwein and Brown. They met about five miles from the home.

Sensing urgency, Brake left in such a hurry that she left most of her medical equipment at the parents' house. But she was there to deliver the baby nonetheless, with no complications.

Brown had also called Three Rivers Ambulance to come to the delivery site as a back-up to Brake.

"As it turned out we didn't need anything," Brown said, but the presence of Three Rivers personnel was appreciated.

At 5:05 a.m. on May 24, with Mother Nature looking on, the 7-pound, 3-ounce baby was born. He was 19 inches long.

"The moon was going down and the sun was coming up," Brown said. "It was surreal."