Uncle Si Celebrates Jacob & Bella’s Long-Awaited Baby

Merritt Presley Maya arrived a week ago, six pounds and eight ounces, with a full head of black hair. Jacob Robertson, her father, told the Duck Call Room that his first thought when he saw his daughter was simple: he told Bella she did great. Then he started crying. The announcement had been kept quiet through the entire pregnancy, so for most of the Robertson family and the show's listeners, this was the first they were hearing of it. Jacob admitted he had reached a point in his life where he thought he might have to be okay with never having kids. Standing in that delivery room, he said, he was just grateful to be there.

The Birth and the Venus Flytrap

Bella went in for a 39-week appointment on her birthday, hoping to deliver that day. Instead, her blood pressure dropped, lab work showed protein levels three hundred times above normal—a sign of preeclampsia—and the decision was made to induce. She didn't dilate until 11:50 PM, then pushed the baby out naturally in just eight sets of contractions. Jacob watched the entire thing. Beforehand, he had told the family in the waiting room that he always imagined childbirth would look like a Venus flytrap snapping shut on the baby. When the doctor told him to look, he was surprised to find it was nothing like that. "It was fine," he said. "It was not that big of a deal." The other fathers on the panel—Si, John Luke, and the re