Natalie McDonald has always been a little impatient.

“It was definitely a very crazy night. We were on our way to the hospital and I just didn’t want to wait so...” she trails off and flashes a wide smile at her parents, Heather Sinclair-McDonald and Wayne McDonald.

So, 20 years ago, Natalie graced the cover of the Star after being born in the passenger seat of a car pulled over on the side of the Gardiner Expressway, at exactly 12:05 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2000.

The New Millenium fireworks display going off over Lake Ontario accompanied her entrance into the world, a worthy fanfare.

It turns out Natalie has also always had a flair for the dramatic.

Natalie’s mother is a nurse. At the time, she was a labour and delivery nurse at St. Michael’s Hospital. And the absolute last thing she wanted that night was to go in too early and be sent home — the embarrassment!

She was in pain but she didn’t feel like she was in active labour, as she had been 16 years earlier with her daughter Natisha. There was no need to drive to St. Mike’s from their Mississauga home just yet.

First-time dad-to-be Wayne, however, felt differently. So did her nurse friends at the hospital. Finally — rather than have Wayne carry out his threat to call an ambulance — Heather agreed they could drive over. About 15 minutes after Heather, Wayne and Natisha headed out, Heather felt a sudden, strong pressure.

“It felt like something was happening that shouldn’t be happening,” she said. They pulled over and Wayne came around to the passenger side and helped her pull down her pants. There was a big contraction, her water broke and Natalie was born.

In the meantime, Natisha was calling 911 and passed the phone to Wayne.

“I had one hand on the phone and one hand on (Natalie’s head) ... I was freaking out,” he said. “I just remember once the head came out that was the end of my usefulness. I was done.”

Heather’s professional training kicked in and Wayne saw her reach down with both hands. Two pushes later, Natalie was fully out. Heather checked her airway, made sure she was OK, and then swaddled her against her chest, inside her winter clothes, the umbilical cord still attached.

“I’m not sure if we were totally relaxed,” Wayne said, of when he got back into the car. “But I think there was some sort of comfort in the fact the baby was out ... she looked OK.”

They proceeded to St. Michael’s Hospital as originally planned — Heather said there was no need to go to the nearby St. Joseph’s.

“Once I pulled up to the hospital and saw a police officer I exhaled,” Wayne said. “You think your ordeal is now over.”

But the officer told them they couldn’t go in. There was a hostage-taking happening in the emergency room.

A 26-year-old man had brought in his three-month-old son demanding he be treated, though an inquest later heard that the baby was fine other than a runny nose. The man — for reasons that remain a mystery — held an unloaded pellet gun that resembled an automatic pistol against a doctor’s neck and was shot dead by police.

Outside the hospital, Wayne barely listened to what the police officer was saying as he tried to figure out where they needed to go next.

Natalie — born after a long struggle with fertility treatments and a difficult pregnancy — was doing great but he could only think about getting them to a hospital, stat.

“I was fine,” Heather said.

“I was not good,” Wayne said. “In my mind St. Mike’s was the only hospital that existed in the entire world and now you are banning me from St. Mike’s.”

They eventually made it to Mount Sinai hospital and the hospital staff took over.

The whole labour had lasted two hours and five minutes, from first contraction to delivery.

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The next day, Wayne took the car in to be cleaned.

“When we went to pick it up, we had (Natalie) in the carrier,” Heather said. “And they were like what happened in your car, man? We just kept scrubbing and there was blood...”

Before Heather could explain, they saw the newborn baby. Wait, was that...? Yeah.

“It feels very normal,” said Natalie, after the story of her birth was recounted for the umpteenth time. “Yeah I was born in a car.”

And a photo of her and her mother was on the front page of the Star the next day.

“You were born in a car, so you’re definitely going places,” wrote reporter Kerry Gillespie at the time.

She has. Natalie is now in her second year of university in Alberta, studying psychology.

“I do think my personality was moulded by being born in a car,” she laughs. “I definitely have a mind of my own. Definitely the night I was born ... I felt that I want to do this right now.”

When she was first born, she cried for five seconds, then was totally peaceful, her father added. There had been enough commotion for a while, at least.

It’s a story people have loved to hear over the years.

“It’s one of those stories that are uplifting to people,” Wayne said. “Some of it sounds made up ... but it warms people’s souls.”

Every time he tells it, that reaction reminds him of how he felt that night.

“At the end of the day, so many things could have gone wrong. We were dealing with infertility for the longest time. When we got pregnant we weren’t sure if the baby was going to stay, for the longest time we were prepared for her to lose it,” he said.

And you try not to get too attached, he said, but then on an ultrasound he saw Natalie’s profile and the same pointy chin as her mother.

“From that point on I fell in love with that little person. When she was born and everything was OK, and she was fine. That was a warm feeling.”

The story has also served Natalie well over the years.

Armed with this tale, she has never lost at the icebreaker game of two truths and a lie.