Posted on: Thursday, April 12, 2001

Van adds tiny passenger en route

By Eloise Aguiar
Advertiser Windward Bureau

A new Honda Odyssey van served as a delivery room yesterday morning when Noelani and Victor Talamoa of Kailua were unable to make it to the hospital for the birth of their baby.

But Noelani Talamoa, who delivered an 8-pound girl in the front seat of her van on Wood Street in Nu'uanu at 7:50 a.m., said she wasn't concerned about the new seat covers. The urgent nature of her child's birth and thoughts like "this can't be happening" occupied her mind, she said.

"I was screaming because it was so painful, and I'm thinking no one is going to come out to help me because they think something bad is happening," she said from her hospital room at Kapi'olani Medical Center for Women and Children.

Mom and baby are doing fine, thanks to a calm husband and a neighbor who stopped when she heard Talamoa crying.

Talamoa said she knew there was a chance she might not make it to the hospital when her contractions were five minutes apart at 7 a.m. She has a history of quick births. Her previous childbirth took only 30 minutes after her water broke.

Despite a reported accident at Castle Junction on her route to the city, she insisted on going to Kapi'olani. Before leaving, the couple received advice from her doctor and a delivery room nurse by phone to take towels and to pull over if her water broke.

By the time she reached Nu'uanu, Talamoa said she felt confident that she would make it. But when they reached the residential area, she told her husband to pull over. He tried to call an ambulance, but because she was screaming, the dispatcher couldn't hear the information. The couple didn't know what street they were on.

It was too late for an ambulance, and she told her husband to come to her, she said.

"As soon as he looked down the baby came out, and he caught her," Talamoa said. "He was still trying to call."

A motorist stopped to help and was able to give directions to the couple's location.

The incident will be one of those family stories told over and over, she said. Especially because the couple had joked about not wanting to give birth in their new van. "I still can't believe that actually happened to me," she said.

The Talamoas have two boys, and said this child would be their last.