It’s bound to happen: you’ll have contractions in the car and have to give birth on the emergency lane along the highway. It happened to a woman on the A16 near Breda on Sunday night and Marieke de Groot from Boxtel can also talk about it. She experienced the same thing on the A2 in Vught in 2015 and ‘highway baby’ Tim became famous overnight. He even got his own hectometer marker. “Eight years later he proudly shows it to everyone,” says Marieke.
Mother Marieke and her husband Robbie were on their way from their home to the hospital in Den Bosch on the night of August 16, 2015. Her waters broke on the A2 in Vught and Marieke had to give birth on the emergency lane. Although the midwife was also in the car, the shock was great.
“It brought a lot of tension.”
“It was very intense,” says Marieke. “The care providers only arrived when Tim was already born, so only the midwife was there. It was raining, it was dark and we were on the hard shoulder. So it was a dangerous situation and that caused a lot of tension.”
Three minutes after midnight, at hectometer marker 122.2, son Tim was born. He had not suffered anything from all the fuss, the baby was perfectly healthy. That same day, the new parents were showered with media attention.
“For babies, it is always noted what the news was on the day of birth. Our Tim made his own news,” father Robbie said at the time. Marieke: “We didn’t know what happened to us. A friend of ours then filmed everything and made a DVD of it. When I look back at that now, there was a lot of attention for it. .”
“On the highway, Tim points enthusiastically and says, I was born here, right?”
Tim and his parents even received a hectometer marker from Rijkswaterstaat. That hangs above Tim’s bed eight years later. “He thinks it’s very cool to show that and once even proudly took it to school,” says Marieke.
The special event runs like a common thread through the life of the family. “When something like this comes up in the news again, I am usually tagged by friends on social media,” says Marieke. The story comes up with every birthday and every time Tim drives along the A2 with his parents, it is about it. “We drive past there regularly,” says Marieke. “Then Tim points enthusiastically and says: ‘I was born here, right?’”
Tim also has an older brother and he thinks it’s a bit of a shame that he was born in the hospital. “It’s always talked about with Tim, but not with him. But this was enough for once,” laughs Marieke.
THIS HAPPENED EIGHT YEARS AGO:
Media lined up to interview the new parents
