This birth puts the livery in delivery.
Activist Beka Economopoulos gave birth in the backseat of a cab to a healthy baby girl on Tuesday, two blocks from the Greenpoint home she shares with her husband, Jason Jones.
Economopoulos, founder of the arts collective Not and Alternative and an Occupy Williamsburg participant, was expecting to give birth in two weeks, but she began to have contractions at 5:30 pm at her Newel Street home during a video team meeting with other Occupy protesters.
The demonstrators played the role of doula as best as they could as Economopoulos went into labor.
About 45 minutes later, Jones called a cab — but the taxi never made it to the hospital.
Economopoulos’s husband and a midwife squeezed her hips to help with the pain, but that didn’t work.
“I said, no, don’t squeeze, pull my pants down, there’s a head there,” she said.
The cab driver got out of his car at Greenpoint Avenue and waved orange flags directing traffic until two ambulances and six police cars arrived at the scene.
“I didn’t even push it just came out,” Economopoulos said in a video posted on YouTube titled “Occupy Baby.” “I thought I had a poop and then there was a head. Jason caught the baby!”
Fire Department paramedics cleaned the baby, put Economopoulos on a stretcher, placed her in an ambulance, cut the baby’s umbilical cord, and drove to Bellevue Hospital as Jones filmed the whole thing.
“We had it in the cab,” said Jones. “She’s totally fine. We’re here in the hospital. I caught it in the cab.”
Later that night, Economopoulos posted on her Facebook page, “Well that was unexpected. Baby came 2 wks early, labor was a little more than an hour from start to finish. Jason delivered her in the back of a cab. We only got 2 blocks from the house! Everyone’s healthy and happy. Thx for the well wishes!”
Friends said that the story of their birth is “completely fitting.”
“Anyone who knows Beka, and has seen her in action as an organizer, is not surprised by her amazing calm, aplomb, and lucidity while she does the miraculous,” said Williamsburg resident Cynthia Walker, a fellow parent.
And city Taxi and Limousine Commissioner David Yassky offered 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.
The protesting power couple named the baby Mila Amie Economopoulos Jones and are now back in Greenpoint celebrating their new family.
WARNING: This video features content that some viewers may find graphic, including the cutting of an umbilical cord.
Reach reporter Aaron Short at ashort@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-2547.r
