While a first-time labor and delivery usually lasts around many hours, sometimes, babies just decide that they are coming out. Now.

Babies are occasionally born on airplanes, on the subway, on the front lawn, and more often than you would think in a car on the way to hospital.

A mom in Cambridge, in the UK, delivered her baby in her local post office this week. She went in to top up her cell phone, and delivered a healthy baby girl before paramedics could arrive. The little girl weighed 5lbs 15oz. How do we know? Because the post master weighed her on the mail scale.

And then another new arrival made her debut on New York’s Fifth Avenue. The mom was being driven to hospital, and dang that midtown traffic, didn’t make it in time. She was expecting twin babies, and the first was born in the car outside Central Park. Paramedics made it to the scene in time to assist with the birth, and get the mother to the hospital where the second baby was delivered. The twin were born seven weeks prematurely and are expected to stay in hospital for a couple of weeks, common for preemies. One of the paramedics described the birth as “fun”. I can’t help but wonder if the mom felt the same way?

A lot of moms worry about going into labor and delivering their baby right there on the floor in the laundry detergent section at Target or in Jiffy Lube. But actually, births like these are very rare and being rare is what makes them newsworthy. The average first time labor lasts for hours, 8 to 24 hours is a normal range, with 16 hours being the average time from first contraction, to holding your baby. So almost all moms have plenty of time to get to the hospital or birthing center once labor starts.

Can you imagine? A pregnant British woman got off her London Underground subway train and all of a sudden, her water broke and she went into labor on the platform. Paramedics were called, who decided that there wasn’t enough time to get her to hospital. And 35 minutes later she gave birth to a healthy baby girl in the station supervisor’s office.

Even though millions of people use the London subways every day, she’s only the second baby to be born in the London Underground’s 125 year history. The only other baby was born way back in 1924 in a south London station.

That’s just counting regular operation of the tube trains. During World War II, the underground train tunnels and platforms were used as air raid shelters, for London’s residents to shelter from German planes bombing the city. Thousands of Londoners often had to spend nights underground and several babies were born in the tunnels. Can you guess who the most famous baby is? Jerry Springer – yes, the talk show host – was born in East Finchley tube station in 1944 at the height of the German attacks on London.

I wonder if this baby girl will receive a lifetime of free travel on the London Underground? That’s what happened to a baby born on a San Francisco’s BART train – the baby was given a lifetime pass to ride the BART trains for free, and some babies born on airplanes have been given a lifetime of free air travel. It’s almost worth having a baby in an odd place for the freebies!