Six-day-old Alexi Pacquin is one tough little fellow.
Last Friday, his mother, Heather Whitlow, eight months, three weeks pregnant -and-counting, felt what she described as "mild" labor pains.
She called her husband Tom Pacquin at work.
Pacquin drove home, and based on the birth of their first child, 2-year-old Avery, he thought they had plenty of time. Whitlow had been in labor for 50 hours with Avery, though she hoped this time it would go faster. It did.
Whitlow says her labor pains took a very sharp, sudden turn.
In one of those family dramas that will be retold forever, the baby started coming -- right there on the sidewalk in the 300 block of L. Street SE, at 3:30 in the afternoon.
"All of a sudden, things shifted, I knew this baby was coming right now," Whitlow said. Whitlow pulled out her cell phone, called 911 and said, "I'm having a baby on the sidewalk."
Local
Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia local news, events and information
"I caught him like this," Pacquin said, demonstrating. The ambulance soon arrived and took the family to the George Washington University Hospital.
When doctors asked if the baby hit the ground, the proud father replied: "No. It was a touchdown."
After being assured his little head did not hit the ground, doctors at GW Hospital pronounced Alexi "just fine."
And that patch of sidewalk is now part of his family's history.
