On Saturday September 25th, 2021, I delivered a baby: our daughter.

No, I don’t have a side gig as an obstetrician.

No, we didn’t plan on having a home birth, but that’s what happened. As the saying goes; You Plan, God Laughs.

Here’s how it went down:

8pm on September 24th: My wife starts having contractions. They’re about 12 minutes apart and pretty mild.

8:30pm: The contractions narrow to 8 minutes apart, we call the doctor. The doctor advises us to go to the hospital after contractions have consistently been 3 minutes apart for 1 hour.

9:30 pm: All contractions have stopped. We chalk it up to a false alarm but realize we will need to pay attention. We go to sleep.

12:30 am on September 25th: My wife starts having contractions again, 8-12 minutes apart.

2:58 am: Contractions narrow to 3 minutes apart — our 1 hour clock before going to the hospital has started.

3:35 am: My wife’s water breaks. She knows we’re probably not going to make it to the hospital. We realize we need to call 911 to get an ambulance.

3:38 am: As I grab my phone to call 911 I look down. I can see the top of my baby girl’s head.

Over the next 5 or so minutes, I’m on the phone with the 911 operator as she walks me through delivering the baby. The operator gives advice like: keep the head and neck steady, don’t pull the baby out, wipe the mouth clean, wrap baby in towels, etc.

Everything goes remarkably smoothly. I delivered our baby with the help of the 911 operator and the strength and calm of my wife. What an experience.

About 5 minutes after her delivery the EMTs arrive and begin to take over. The ambulance transports mom and baby to the hospital, I follow shortly after, and we spend the next 30 or so hours confirming everyone is in good health (they are) before coming home yesterday morning.

The whole thing is over in a blink and suddenly I’m a father of two.

There is a lot to be grateful for.

One of the EMTs who arrived at our house that night said he’d seen 3 of these accidental home birth situations in 35 years on the job. The OB doctor said she’d seen just a handful in her career. Clearly this was a tail risk event.

Tail Risks, Black Swans, and other unpredictable events happen. But when the doctor gives us advice like “come to the hospital after contractions spaced 3 minutes apart for an hour” based on decades of experience, we follow it. The advice works out the vast majority of the time, but there are always outliers like us. It doesn’t mean the advice was wrong.

This is true in investing, forecasting the weather, economic modeling, being an obstetrician, and countless other instances where people give guidance about something that hasn’t happened yet.

As time passes I’m sure I’ll have some more thoughts about this. For now I’m just happy everything worked out and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Onward,

Adam Harding | Advisor | Dad | Amateur Doula