Talk about your 'Special Delivery'

PATRICK AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. -- For Tech. Sgt. Chad Malley, and his wife, Tye, the third time proved to be anything but the charm.But the end result was well worth it. For the Malley's, relatively new comers who arrived here at the 45th Space Wing in April, June 23 started off as a pretty normal day, Tye said, as she talked about it from the Patrick AFB Fire Department where her husband works.

Well, it was normal if you consider being five days short of your delivery day, having a 3- and 6-year-old in the house and your Mother here from Colorado to help with the new baby a "normal" day, that is.

"My Mom was not able to be there for the births of our first two children, so she was very excited about being here for this one, and so were we," said Tye, a native of Monument, Colo.

So while Gramma took Connor, 6, and Cadence, 3, to the movies, Chad and Tye went out for a dinner, alone, something they don't do as much as they would like sometimes.

After arriving home around 8:30 p.m., Tye complained of back pains and told her husband and Mom she was going to go lie down. That rest time didn't last very long.

Because, after a short rest, she unceremoniously told both of them (in no uncertain terms) that "it was time to go."

So out they went to their Expedition in the driveway, grabbing nothing but a towel along the way and headed to Holmes Regional Hospital in Melbourne from their Palm Bay home. Unfortunately Chad didn't make it that far. Only two blocks from home, her water broke and the baby decided it was time at the corner of Palm Bay and Dairy Roads.

So he pulled the vehicle "kind of sideways into a corner of a convenience store there," he said, and had already started dialing 9-1-1 at the same time.

As an Air Force firefighter, Tech. Sgt. Malley, a native of Malone, N.Y., had already been trained as a first responder and he had gone a step farther, graduating from the Emergency Medical Technicians Course.

"Let me tell you something," said Sgt. Malley, as he held five-week-old Cais in his arms, "being on-scene with someone else is a whole different game when that someone else is your wife," said Sgt. Malley, who was recently selected for promotion to Master Sgt.

"But I was able to use that training, and when I had him in my arms and got him to cry, at 10:07 p.m., I can't begin to tell you the sense of relief and joy both of us were feeling together at the exact same minute," he said. "It was surreal, and it still kind of is today," they both said.

Within two-to-three minutes, an ambulance arrived whisking Mom and baby to the hospital while Chad followed right behind them.

Breathing a major sigh of relief all the way there. For all three of them.