Husband’s Foot Was on the Brake When Wife Gave Birth in Car (Exclusive)

A Chicago couple has an incredible story to tell their daughter about her birth when she’s old enough to hear it.

Jasmine Kwong, 41, and her husband, Ashwin Avasarala, 40, are the proud parents of baby Aira, who was born last week inside her parent’s car on the side of the city’s iconic Michigan Avenue.

“Aira was born on the Mag Mile, right by the Tribune Tower,” Kwong tells PEOPLE. “You can’t get more Chicago than that.”

The day of their baby’s arrival started bright and early when Kwong woke up around 5 a.m. on Sept. 15 with horrible cramping. Kwong says her doctor had warned that their baby might arrive quickly after the contraction pain started, so she called her office about two hours later to see if it was time to head to the hospital.

But, she says, another doctor told her to wait until “until they got intense.”

However, by 8:30 a.m. she “was in so much pain and saw blood when using the restroom,” so she told her husband that it was time to go.

As her contractions worsened, the couple made a quick pit stop to drop off their toddler at daycare, thinking they would still have more than enough time to make it to the hospital, which was only about 15 minutes away.

“But we were wrong,” she says, adding that the “baby couldn’t wait!”

“Ashwin tried to calm me down along the way,” Kwong recalls, “but I was in way too much pain. By the time we crossed the river, I felt that something was coming out for real this time.”

Her husband started panicking — “there were expletives,” Kwong recalls — when he looked over and actually saw their baby’s head, so he pulled over right behind a bus by the Tribune Tower.

“With a foot on the brake, he reached over and pulled the baby out,” she says. “Then he put the car in park, put the hazards on, and called 911.”

“As we were stopping traffic on Michigan Avenue,” Kwong continues, “police officers were right behind us telling us to move. Once they realized what was happening, they apologized and started redirecting traffic and making sure we were okay.”

Paramedics arrived and cleaned up the baby, suctioned liquids out of her nose and clamped and cut umbilical cord. Then the couple and their newborn were then taken to the ER.

Baby Aira spent a day at the hospital’s NICU with oxygen and IV support, Kwong adds, and after three days, they were both discharged from the hospital.

“Thankfully Aira came out as a firecracker but quickly calmed down,” says Kwong, who previously told the couple’s story to CW affiliate WGN.

“She sleeps most of the time. She’s just over a week old now and her favorite activities thus far are sleeping all day, being wide awake in the middle of the night, drinking from the bottle more than from the breast, pooping while we’re holding her, and peeing while we’re changing her diaper,” she told the outlet.

Kwong tells PEOPLE that even though their daughter’s birth was “way too dramatic,” they’re both “grateful that the birth was so easy and quick.”

Though she playfully adds that “it took hours” before her husband “finally calmed down” from the experience.

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Kwong and Avasarala, who married in 2020, are both graduates of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, which makes this birth even more special for the couple.

“We met while studying at Chicago Booth’s part-time program, at the Gleacher Center, which is basically right behind the Tribune Tower,” says Kwong. “So it’s a full circle Chicago moment for us. We look forward to sharing this story with her and bringing her to the exact location where she came into the world!”