Craig Nichol (35) conceded yesterday he "probably shouldn't have had breakfast, and just got going," when wife Sarah (32) went into labour with their second child on July 30.
She was surprised to find her husband having a cup of coffee and toast after her labour started, Mrs Nichol said, but she had already had some false starts and when she felt something happening about 5am they both thought it might be another false alarm.
However, an hour later it was clear it was the real thing and, leaving son Robbie (3) at home with an aunt, the couple started the hour-long journey to Dunedin.
Heavy fog hampered progress around Clarks Junction, but when Mrs Nichol started getting "a bit more serious" at Outram, Mr Nichol said he decided "to go as fast as I possibly could".
But it was not quite fast enough.
Baby George was born in the back seat of the Falcon at 7.05am, at the corner of Stuart and London Sts in Dunedin - about half a kilometre from the hospital.
"I said: 'Stop, I've had it'," Mrs Nichol said.
"[Craig] said 'What?', pulled over, came running around the car and kind of untangled us."
Mrs Nichol had not been sure how far advanced her labour was so had not told her husband too much because she did not want to panic him.
"I still thought we'd make it."
The couple's midwife, Mary Ritchie, had given them some instructions on what to do if the baby was born in the car, she said.
Their only concern had been if the baby needed his airways cleared or any other emergency that required equipment they did not have with them, but he cried immediately, to their relief.
They bundled him up in some towels and drove straight to the emergency department, where Mr Nichol told a nurse his wife had just had a baby in the car.
"She said 'You seem very calm' and I said 'Well, [my wife's] the one that's had the baby'."
Mrs Nichol said while it was a terrible experience at the time, she was relieved it went quickly and she was not in labour for hours.
As for the baby's name - George Raymond Stuart Nichol - "They are all family names, but we were humming and hawing about Stuart.
"We wondered if three was too many names, but when he was born in Stuart St, that sealed it."
