KAMLOOPS, B.C. — The old Dodge pickup is beaten up after summers of mining in the Yukon, but Nika Guilbault plans to keep it for another 16 years.
By then, her newborn twins, Henry Dodge and Nevada Sierra, will be old enough to boast about driving the same truck in which they were born.
When Guilbault awoke early Jan. 28 at her home in Sorrento, B.C., which about 430 kilometres northeast of Vancouver, she was sure she was going into labour.
She new from experience she would have to get to a hospital in Kamloops quickly because her first daughter, now two, was a fast birth.
"We knew it could be quite quick, but it was faster than we thought," said Guilbault. "I basically went from not any contractions to full labour and having a baby within half-an-hour — and it’s an hour drive from Sorrento to Kamloops.”
As husband Chris St. Jean steered the truck down the highway, coaching his wife on her breathing while holding the phone so Guilbault could talk to her midwife, baby Nevada was born.
"I had to give her two breaths of air to get her going and she perked right up and her eyes were opened, so I tucked her in my shirt to keep her warm and was just waiting for the next one, and hoping we’d get there," Guilbault said.
"I wouldn’t let my husband pull over because I knew we needed to get there because there was another one coming."
They made it to Royal Inland Hospital's parking lot before her second twin was born, with staff helping at the last moments.
Guilbault is grateful everything worked out, as Henry arrived feet first, with his umbilical cord around his neck.
"We were lucky it was the middle of the night and we had amazing road conditions and it wasn’t too cold out or anything," she said.
Had they lived farther from the hospital, or faced bad weather, Guilbault said she would have given birth on the side of the road.
Both babies are now doing well, but Guilbault said because her "Dodge twins" were premature, they won't come home for a few weeks.
In another twist to the story, the truck in which the twins were born is the vehicle Guilbault and her husband used while filming Yukon Gold, a TV show focused on mining, which added the couple to its cast for its third season.
