It’s tradition for the media to report on the first baby born at an area hospital on New Year’s Day.

Anastasia Alewine wasn’t the first baby born in South Carolina in 2018, but it’s doubtful anybody made a more spectacular entrance into the world.

Anastasia was delivered on the side of I-26, on the hood of a car, after a high-speed chase and with her father in handcuffs.

It was all a misunderstanding, but it was a memorable one.

Tiffani Von Glahn, Anastasia’s mother, was having contractions and going into labor three weeks before the due date. She called the baby’s father, Carl Alewine, who was at work and said they needed to get from their St. George home to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, where they planned to deliver the baby.

So much for the best-laid plans.

During the more than 50-mile journey, with Alewine dutifully speeding his fianceé to the hospital, a police officer attempted to pull them over for going too fast.

“He was going about 90-95 and a police officer came up behind us to pull us over. And he was like, ‘Do you want me to stop?’ And I was like, ‘No don’t you stop’, because I felt her coming,” Von Glahn told counton2.com, explaining she thought it was high-risk pregnancy that would require a cesarean section. “I was thinking there was no way I could have her naturally.”

Law enforcement was unaware of that, or of the pregnant woman whose water broke on the verge of having a baby in the car. They saw a speeding car on a night known for foolish drivers.

It’s also known for having a lot of officers on duty, and many quickly responded to the high-speed chase unfolding.

“I said I might go to jail tonight. She is screaming, and I knew that meant keep going,” Alewine said to abcnews4.com. “Next thing we know, there are 20 cops cars behind us.”

“I said, ‘Oh My God babe, we’ve got all the cops in the world after us right now,’ ” Alewine said to live5news.com.

The officers eventually boxed them in, forcing them to pull over – in the middle of I-26. And that’s where they placed Alewine in handcuffs.

“I said, ‘Man, she is having a baby, and you are going to end up delivering this baby if you don’t do something,’ ” Alewine said to abcnews4.com.

Fortunately for everyone involved, an experienced hand at delivering babies was on the scene with law enforcement.

Neal Arrington, a firefighter with the Goose Creek Fire Department, was riding along with his son, a deputy with the Charleston County Sheriff’s Office, live5news.com reported. According to Arrington, he asked Von Glahn how far along in her pregnancy she was and said he needed to take a look at her and was greeted by a “head full of hair and then caught it.”

Von Glahn said she pushed once, and Anastasia was born.

I’ve seen a lot of things in my life you guys... but watching my daughter be born on a New Years midnight in the middle of the interstate through tear soaked eyes, in handcuffs, from the hood of my jeep, in the reverie of 100 blue patrol lights as fireworks burst all around us,” Alewine wrote on Facebook. “And seeing so many of the low country’s finest clap as they took the handcuffs off and said, ‘Man... go see your little girl.’ … I’ve never seen or felt something so human and compassionate in my life.”

Arrington, who said helped a boy on the interstate nearly 20 years ago, met up with the happy family in Von Glahn’s hospital room Tuesday.

“Awww, she’s a little bit cleaner this time,” Arrington said of the 6-pound-2 ounce newborn.

“Now we have an exciting story to tell her when she is older,” Von Glahn said to abcnews4.com.