Craig Muhonen's A Birthing Story

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Here is an email sent from Craig Muhonen on 9/21/22, about the birth of his son, Zane Muhonen: "A story about a pregnancy and a birth, and a tribute to Lexie and to our doctor, one named “Doc Peters”. April 24th, 1977 (see links below) This picture was taken 2 weeks before Lexie gave birth to our son Zane, on an April night, half way up Norwood Hill. The brown Datsun in the background is how I got to Telluride in the first place. The blue Datsun we had just bought, and when asked what color we would like, Lexie said, “Blue for our boy”. It had a perfect little “birthing” light and a lay back seat. The dog is Munchkin, “Munch”, who was well loved by all, and became the avatar for my small little plumbing business. She had had 10 puppies in 72’, and at the first Bluegrass festival in Elks park, put on by The Fall Creek Band, Kooster held each one up to the crowd and we gave them all away that day, all except “Floyd” who we kept. I think Munch outlived a lot of her puppies as she lived to be 18 years old. We buried her in Pandora, with a view of Bridal Veil Falls. We were living in a condo above Dusatko’s plumbing shop in Telluride where I worked, and on the night of April 23rd, her water broke. I called our doctor in Norwood, to come up for our planned home birth, but Doc Peters had just delivered a baby to a couple in Montrose and also one at his clinic, and was dead tired, so he asked us to come down instead of him coming up, so I grabbed a blanket and we were off into the night. Munch had always been with us wherever we went, but this night she stayed home. On the 32 mile drive to the clinic, which was curvy and rock filled, plus the deer, I could tell that the baby was coming fast so in Placerville, when Lexie said, “stop, I gotta pee”, I thought that she was going to give birth right there on the side of the road. She climbed back in and I started to drive faster because we still had 20 miles to go down this windy mountain road in the middle of nowhere. As we started the climb up Norwood hill I knew it was going to be close, and with my hand, I could already feel the head of the baby “crowning”. “faster, faster” Lexie called out, but I had to be careful, because around every curve there were rocks in the road. Then, Lexie screamed out, “pull over, he’s coming”! Luckily there was a small turn out, so I pulled the truck to a stop, and ran around to her side, just barely not tripping and tumbling over the edge of the canyon. What a scene that would have been. I reached in, felt for the cord, and right there, Zane was born into my arms, or at least half of him anyway. His head was up, his eyes were open and as I crouched there dumfounded, (Lexie was in between contractions), a set of headlights pulled up behind us. In a flash, Doc Peters (who lived at the bottom of Norwood hill) was there pulling on his gloves ( I had forgotten mine) and reaching in to her, he said, “push Lexie”, and out he came. He put the baby on her stomach, covered with a blanket and said to me, “you’ve got a boy, I’ll drive your truck and meet you at the clinic”, and tossed me his keys. As they drove off, I couldn’t believe what had just happened, I was alone and someone had just driven off with my wife, and my minutes old baby. I quickly went back to his car and realized that it was a ’68 Camaro 4 speed. Growing up in Southern California, I knew this car, and as I “cherped” through the gears, I quickly caught and passed them. I was standing at the clinic when they pulled in a few minutes later, and I watched Doc reach in, cut the cord, and then he handed me the baby. “We will go in and take care of the after birth”, and Wow, there I was with this wrinklely little guy in my arms, and I made my way into the clinic room and sat down with him. I had 15 minutes alone with him and I realized that I had been spared the “trauma” of a hospital and Doctors and nurses and the bright white lights. Then Lexie came in and climbed into the bed. He had been born in 55 minutes flat, and it seemed so surreal. A half hour later, our friends from telluride and Rico, who were going to be at our home birth, came in and went right over to Lexie thinking that she had not yet given birth, but when she pointed to me holding the baby, they screamed, “we missed it”. After a time of oohs and awhs they were gone, and we settled in for the night with our new baby. In the morning Doc Peters filled out the birth certificate, and under “Hospital” he put, “Datsun”, saying, “I’ve delivered a few babies in the middle of nowhere before, but this one was the fastest, and it went off without a hitch, Lexie is a trooper” We were back home by 10 AM the next morning, and what an amazing 12 hours it was. Lexie and I celebrate our 48th year together, and hats off to her for doing the every day work, as Plumbing kept me away from them much of the time."