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Jindal is forced to stand in for stork
Congressman's wife can't wait for hospital
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
By Bill Walsh
Washington bureau
WASHINGTON -- When it comes to health care policy, they don't come much
wonkier than Rep. Bobby Jindal, R-Kenner.
But all the statistics, charts and graphs in the world didn't prepare the
freshman lawmaker for the words he heard from his wife's mouth early Tuesday
morning.
"This baby is coming now!" Supriya Jindal yelled.
Jindal threw out the instruction book and delivered his baby son at home.
Slade Ryan Jindal, the couple's third child, was born Tuesday about 3:25
a.m. on the floor of his parents' bedroom in Kenner. He is healthy and at birth
weighed 8 pounds, 2 ounces and was 21 inches long.
The story of the couple's first two children had been "hurry up and wait":
early arrivals and excruciatingly long labors. Not so with baby No. 3.
Supriya Jindal went to the hospital twice last week with labor pains only to
be told to go home. A doctor's visit Monday suggested the newest child
actually might be a few days off.
When the pains started again around 2 a.m., a nurse at the hospital said
they should head on in. The suitcase was packed and the couple were preparing to
walk out the door for the car ride to Baton Rouge, where their first two
children were born.
That's when Supriya frantically summoned her husband to the bathroom. Jindal
called an ambulance and raced to gather some towels. When he saw the baby's
head emerging, he said he knew he was on his own.
"I made sure he wasn't tangled up in the umbilical cord or that his head
didn't hit the floor," Jindal said. "I tried to do everything you see in the
movies."
Supriya also had some helpful advice.
"She told me, 'Make sure to get everything out of the mouth.' I said, 'I
don't think there is any obstruction. He's screaming.'
"She asked me if there were 10 fingers and toes. I told her there were. She
asked if it was a boy or a girl. I told her it was a boy."
Jindal tied off the umbilical cord with a shoelace, and the paramedics
arrived.
"It was all so quick. It was over in 30 minutes," he said. "You don't have
time to think about calling anyone for help. It's your wife and son. You just
do what you have to do."
Luckily for Jindal, he had more than instincts to rely on. He had been in
the operating room when his first two children, Selia, now 4, and Shaan, now 2,
were born. Somehow, they slept through the birth of their brother.
"I don't know what I would have done if I had to handle two little kids
through all of that," Jindal said.
Jindal almost became a doctor. In 1996, he was preparing to enroll at
Harvard Medical School when Gov. Mike Foster offered him the job of Louisiana health
secretary. He was 24.
He went on to become executive director of the federal commission on
Medicare reform and later worked in the Bush administration's health policy shop.
Despite his successful turn in his makeshift delivery room, Jindal said he
has no plans to make a career out of it.
"In my mind, this was a one-time deal," he said.
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