By Mario Carr EBS CONTRIBUTOR
On Oct. 7, 2023, my wife gave birth to our first child, a baby girl. We live in Bozeman, and opted for a home birth with the help of midwives and a doula. The Bozeman Birth Center provided this care and was extremely helpful every step of the way through my wife’s first pregnancy. Giving birth can be an exciting and nerve-racking experience. My wife and I had faith that if we needed to get to the hospital for an emergency, we’d be able to get there in time. But this had me wondering—how do pregnant mothers in Big Sky, further from immediate medical care, prepare for birth?
Two canyon babies are born
Our midwife told us that the Bozeman Birth Center has assisted with home births in Big Sky, but that many plan on giving birth in Bozeman. During the winter months, however, the Birth Center cannot assist with home births in Big Sky due to the unpredictable nature of road conditions in the Gallatin Canyon—22 twisting and turning miles of U.S. Highway 191 separate Big Sky from Gallatin Gateway.
Big Sky residents Jodi Daily and Ariane Coleman both planned on giving birth in Bozeman, but are now bonded by their intense and unique common experience – giving birth IN Gallatin Canyon.
“I’m glad you have a baby and I’m not just talking to some random guy about this,” Daily told me, laughing.
On Jan. 25, my wife, my baby and I sat down with Daily and Coleman to talk about their experiences giving birth on the side of the road, in their cars, with their husbands being the ones catching their newborns. We didn’t know just how relevant our conversation would be.
It’s about 5 p.m. on Sept. 1, 2007. A Chevy Silverado pulls out of the northbound lane into a turnout near mile marker 59 in the canyon, with more urgency than the typical highway traveler.
Coleman gives birth to her second child, a baby girl, across from the Gallatin River in a location that still lacks cell phone service more than 16 years later.
On Jan. 14, 2016, Daily is on a similar mission to reach Bozeman, but nature has other plans. She gives birth to her second child, a baby boy, in the last northbound turnout of the Gallatin Canyon on her way to Bozeman. Even as she nears Gallatin Gateway, she’s still more than 15 miles from the city.
Both women were planning on giving birth in Bozeman, Daily at the Birth Center and Coleman at the hospital. That plan worked for their first pregnancies—both women were driven an hour, Coleman from Lewis and Clark Canyon, and Daily from Big Sky to their destination and delivered where they wanted—but it is not uncommon for a second pregnancy to result in a much quicker labor.
Both women shared their experience with plenty of smiles and laughs, but they also seemed comforted by the presence of my wife and baby as a reminder of how intense giving birth can be. Daily explained that she still feels a surge of adrenaline to this day when thinking back on the birth of her second son, the “canyon baby.”
These canyon deliveries were quite different. Coleman was busy preparing for her first son’s birthday party and hosting family from out of town, and was fighting off signs of her early labor.
“So I just decided that we weren’t having a kid anymore,” she said facetiously.
Once her contractions were too frequent to ignore, she and her husband called their doctor who told them to start driving to Bozeman. At the time the couple lived up Dudley Creek Road, which Coleman described as a “very sh**** dirt road,” and by the time they made it to Highway 191, Coleman had jumped out of the car and was prepared to give birth right there. Contractions subsided and the couple started driving north, but did not make it very far.
“We were honking and driving down the canyon, trying to get people out of our way and people were not having it at all. My husband was waving and flashing his lights and nobody was having it,” Coleman said.
After pulling over, Coleman’s husband Ben was able to recruit a fisherman to help. The fisherman ran to the emergency telephone to call an ambulance, and got the help of some others that were passing by.
“So this poor guy has to quit fishing and run down to make the phone call for an ambulance,” Coleman said.
They pulled their truck into the ambulance bay at the hospital in Bozeman and Coleman said that they came and grabbed her baby and her husband, and for a moment she was left alone before they wheeled her into the emergency room.
“I just broke down,” she said. “They didn’t have any room for me in labor and delivery because there were so many babies being born.”
Both women emphasized the altered state of consciousness that they were in while in labor.
“I feel like both times [giving birth] I left my body and reason behind,” Coleman said.
Nine years later, Daily was not fighting off signs of early labor like Coleman had. In fact, she had just been in Bozeman the day before for a checkup at the Birth Center.
“I was very nervous about having a baby in the canyon… Because my first happened really fast and my mom had had babies in hospital hallways,” Daily said.
When Daily wasn’t feeling well, she called her midwife who suggested she come in for another checkup, just to be safe.
“When we started the drive, it was totally precautionary,” she said. But not long after passing the Storm Castle area in the canyon, Daily had a feeling that she wouldn’t make it out of the car before giving birth. Not long after, her water broke and it was time to pull over. Daily had been talking with her midwives about being prepared in the event of giving birth in the canyon throughout her pregnancy, and they helped prepare her for the unexpected. They told her to pull over and give birth if need be.
“These men did stop, and see everything there was to be seen, and they went into service to call for an ambulance,” Daily said. But they, like the Colemans, did not end up waiting for the ambulance and were able to make their way to the Birth Center.
Coleman and Daily were both able to deliver healthy babies with the help of their husbands to catch them. Thankfully there were no additional complications aside from the location.
Delivery services in Big Sky
In January 2016, when Daily gave birth in the canyon, the Bozeman Health Big Sky Medical Center had just recently opened. And while their drive to Bozeman was at the time simply precautionary, she explained that even if she had showed up at the BSMC in the throes of labor, that they would have simply flown or driven her to the hospital in Bozeman.
“You can do all your monthly checkups here [in Big Sky], but they’re not gonna deliver your baby,” Daily said. It’s still true in 2024.
While talking about their canyon babies, Daily and Colman discussed a recent post on the Gallatin Canyon Road Conditions Facebook page – a man, Dan Goodrick, had asked about road conditions in the canyon because his wife was in early labor. The next day, Goodrick informed the group that he and his wife had made it to the Birth Center for the birth of their first child, just in the nick of time at 2:25 a.m. on Jan. 24. The Goodricks live and work at a ranch just south of Big Sky.
Eager for another canyon baby story, I reached out to Dan and his wife Kirsten about the birth of their child. The couple had a plan, but with this being their first child, there were some things they just couldn’t anticipate. Their backup plan, in the event that they felt they couldn’t make the drive, was to try to have the baby at their cabin and to get ahold of the Big Sky Fire Department. Kirsten’s labor had progressed quickly and when her water broke, the couple knew they needed to hit the road.
“It went from–she’s fine, a little cramping, nothing much– to just like that, waters broke and she’s pushing,” Dan said.
On their drive to Bozeman, the couple planned on re-evaluating at the intersection with Lone Mountain Trail in case they felt they needed to get to the Big Sky Medical Center in the event of an emergency. They opted to keep driving towards Bozeman, Dan’s brother Joe following behind with light-bars ablaze. Thankfully, the roads were dry.
“[Joe] lit the entire canyon up like a Christmas tree,” Dan said. “We were a little nervous… What do we do if we get pulled over? Because we were definitely moving at a high rate of speed.”
After the couple made it to the Bozeman Birth Center, the midwives were able to assist with delivering their child.
“Thank God it was not in the canyon, because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck… It just made me think, that’s all the more reason that I did not want this to happen in the canyon,” Dan said.
The couple agreed that they would do some things differently if they were to be expecting another baby while living at the ranch – leaving earlier, and establishing a plan with friends, as well as getting in touch with the sheriff’s office for a possible escort through the canyon.
Hearing these three family’s stories reminded me of the realities of childbirth in an isolated area like Big Sky – and many other parts of Montana – and how difficult it is to prepare for such a life-changing experience. Luckily, all three births have happy endings, and I hope that sharing them will help encourage expecting mothers to take those extra steps in order to be ready when labor signs begin.
