An Express Delivery for Woman

Woodbridge Mom Gives Birth Along HOV Lane in Rush-Hour Traffic

A brand-new Virginia resident got an early introduction to one of the region's most renowned features yesterday morning: gridlock.

A pregnant Melody Burgess woke up in her Woodbridge home with contractions at 5:30 a.m., not the best time to brave Interstate 95. Before long, the contractions were 10 minutes apart, and Burgess was about 20 miles from Inova Alexandria Hospital. She and her family hit the road. Soon, traffic, all too predictably, slowed to a crawl.

Then she had a painful realization: "We're not going to make it."

"Hold on," husband Reggie Inthilith, 38, a sushi chef, reassured her. "It'll be okay."

Burgess, 35, a human resources manager at Sunrise Senior Living, had been there before. On the day their first son, Shane, was born in August 2005, she and her husband had hopped on the HOV-3 lanes on I-95 -- although it was just the two of them -- figuring they had a good excuse to bend the rules. But the pair got a ticket before arriving at the hospital, Burgess said.

Yesterday, they took no chances and took along 3-year-old Shane to make HOV-3. Luckily for Burgess, authorities were a bit more helpful this time.

About 7:30 a.m., the couple pulled onto the shoulder near the Franconia-Springfield Parkway and flagged down Virginia State Trooper William Bryant, 25. It was his ninth week on the job and his fifth day of solo patrol.

"We had a class at the academy on what to do if we were in this situation," said Bryant, who immediately called an ambulance after learning of the couple's predicament. While they waited, he helped lay out some blankets inside the family's Nissan Xterra and put a sheet up in the window for privacy.

"I'm glad I had the class, because [otherwise] I'd have zero idea what to expect," Bryant said. "This is really the first time I've ever been around a live birth. . . . I was like, 'Man, this is kind of exciting.' "

Within about 15 minutes, an ambulance arrived, and Burgess was moved inside. The response time was very good, Bryant said, given the bumper-to-bumper highway.

"Traffic was horrible," he said. "That baby was coming any minute."

The minute, as it turned out, was 7:52 a.m. That's when Joshua Inthilith -- all 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 21 inches of him -- came into the world on the side of the road, inside the ambulance.

With his own tiny contribution to the traffic jam, he survived his first morning rush hour.

Yesterday afternoon, a relieved Burgess sat back in a hospital bed, her husband cradling Joshua -- who had been due Tuesday -- on a nearby sofa.

"I was a little nervous about where he was going to be delivered," Burgess said. "I'm thankful to God . . . that it happened with no complications."