He Just Couldn’t Wait to Be Born

When Catalina’s pains began Friday, Jesus Beltran knew it was time to take his pregnant wife to the hospital.

Although the expectant couple rushed from their La Habra home en route to the hospital, Baby Beltran wouldn’t wait.

The dark-haired infant surprised mom and dad, who delivered him by themselves in the rear of their pickup truck shortly before 11:30 a.m. At the time, they were parked on the southbound shoulder of the Orange Freeway, just south of the Imperial Highway off-ramp, in Fullerton.

Paramedics arrived, but by then Baby Beltran had made his entry into the world, the father said.

Beltran said his wife contacted him at work Friday and told him she had begun having labor pains about 11 a.m. Beltran left his job as a machine operator in Chino, rushed home and put his wife into the rear of the truck, where she could lie down on thick carpet under a camper shell.

“We were ready, and I had made the pickup comfortable,” he said, adding that a relative took charge of the couple’s two other children--Mida, 2, and Jenny, 1 1/2.

As they headed for a hospital in Santa Ana, 24-year-old Catalina Beltran told her husband that the baby was on his way as they passed the Imperial Highway off-ramp.

“I looked behind in the rear, and I noticed that my wife was suffering. She told me the labor pains were coming really fast. I pulled over to the side of the road and got out and helped her,” he said.

Beltran, who is in his mid-20s, also managed to flag down Tim Schindler, an Orange County employee who had noticed the parked truck. Schindler was able to use a CB radio to notify paramedics, Fullerton Fire Capt. Jon McAulay said.

When paramedics arrived, they found all three--mom, dad and baby--huddled in the back of the pickup.

“We cut the (umbilical) cord and kept the baby warm,” Fullerton firefighter Ted Basaites said, adding that the infant had good color and appeared healthy. “Everything was fine,” he said, as they wrapped the newborn in blankets.

Paramedics administered an IV solution to Catalina Beltran to help replenish lost blood and fluids, then transported her and the baby to Placentia-Linda Community Hospital a few miles away.

By nightfall, both mother and baby were in stable condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

And Baby Beltran, clad in hospital swaddling clothes, also sported a new name: Jesus Beltran Jr.

“We named him after me,” the proud father said.