On Monday's Late Night, host Seth Meyers told a hilarious and emotional story about the birth of his second child. When his first child was born, his wife Alexi's contractions started coming fast. They were worried for a moment that she might have to give birth in the Uber. Luckily, they made it to the hospital with twenty minutes to spare. However, this story blows that story out of the water.
It started out as a normal Sunday, until Seth's mother-in-law, Joanne, came downstairs and commanded, "WE HAVE TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL. NOW!" Once again, Alexi's contractions were coming fast, and the baby wasn't waiting for anybody. They called an Uber and rushed to the lobby, but it was too late. Seth recalled, "My wife just says, 'I can't get in that car. I'm going to have the baby right now...The baby is coming. The baby is out.'"
Seth tried to calm Alexi down and convince her to get in the car. But then he realized the baby's head was literally coming. "She looked like someone who was hiding a baby in a pair of sweatpants," reflected Seth, cracking up. Thankfully, their doula, Neelu, was with them to help out. Faced with a choice between having the baby in the lobby or returning to the elevator, they chose the lobby.
After Alexi lay down on the floor of the lobby, they undressed her and formed a semi-circle around her. The doormen stopped their neighbors from walking into the lobby, and luckily no one came down down the elevators, because Alexi's legs were facing that direction. Seth joked they were saved from a lifetime of awkward interactions, and describes the birth as incredibly fast:
"I called 911...and over the course of a minute conversation, I basically said, 'We're about to have a baby — we're having a baby — we had a baby.' I went from someone calling about an emergency to someone just sharing good news with a stranger."
Firefighters, EMTs and NYPD officers arrived in the lobby to help out , and even cut the umbilical cord. Seth showed off a picture that was taken during the craziness. As the EMTs give his his wife oxygen, he looks up at the camera, grinning. In a touching moment, he praised his "incredible rock star" wife's strength, and started crying. "I'm getting choked up thinking about how brave I was," he joked.
This is Seth and Alexi's second son. They named their first son Ashe Olsen, and their second son Axel Strahl. Seth noted that the middle name is in honor of his mother-in-law's parents, who met at a hospital in Australia the day after they were liberated from a concentration camp. In closing, he said that when he saw his wife cradling the baby, he knew, "That kid’s going to be fine forever because of her."
Usually people tune into Late Night for topical jokes, celebrity interviews or his signature politically-driven segment, A Closer Look. But last night they got a closer look into his life, which can occasionally be as crazy as anything in Washington, D.C.
In related news, here's the really creepy reason why women mainly give birth lying down...