Oh sure, most moms-to-be would love to rent out entire hospital floors to deliver their precious bundles of joy, but contracting mothers can't be choosers: a Brooklyn activist and Occupy Wall Street participant gave birth to a healthy baby girl in the back of a cab on Tuesday in Greenpoint. And the baby's father was there to document the whole thing—watch the SFW footage below!
Mom Beka Economopoulos, founder of the arts collective Not an Alternative and an Occupy Williamsburg worker, had been expecting to give birth in two weeks—then frequent contractions started to happen Tuesday afternoon. "We're both really involved with the Occupy movement, and we were about to host a meeting here," she told us about that afternoon. "People started showing up, and I started to have contractions...what started as a video team meeting turned into birth support team."
After "screaming bloody murder," they ordered a taxi and got all of two blocks before the baby arrived. “I didn’t even push it just came out,” she said in the video, which was titled “Occupy Baby.” “I thought I had a poop and then there was a head. Jason caught the baby!”
Her husband, Jason Jones, wrote about the video on YouTube: "It was a weekly video team meeting like any other that we'd had since September. That is, until my wife announced that she was having contractions. I'm a videographer with the Occupy movement and happened to have my camera with me. As soon as my hands were free I pulled it out and started shooting."
The cabbie got out and directed traffic, while police and ambulances arrived. "The police commander actually shut down the Pulsaki Bridge and Queens Midtown Tunnel and escorted us to Bellevue," she added. "Ten or twelve paramedics came into hospital with us. Everyone was so excited. If they had cigars, they would have been giving them out."
Beka Economopoulos and husband Jason Jones and their baby Mila Amie Economopoulos Jones (Aristide Economopoulos)
"It was kind of a traumatic birth, but it worked out perfectly," she concluded. Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky told Brooklyn Paper the baby had his blessing: “There’s something so special about being born in Brooklyn that this beautiful young lady just couldn’t wait to be here!” said Yassky.
So we welcome Mila Amie Economopoulos Jones into the world! It's just too bad the family didn't use the Taxi Driver Name Generator to memorialize the experience—Khixzbrrrrrrr Washington really would have been a lovely name.
