Jason Momoa’s daughter Lola was born just a little over 12 years ago, back when only hard-core sci-fi fans and the people who stumbled on Baywatch Hawaii while flipping channels knew who he was. Maybe that’s why now is the first time we’re hearing the hilarious story of how he came this close to missing her birth. Even all these years later, it’s suspenseful to read.

He told this all to Esquire for his cover story, where he’s promoting his upcoming Apple TV+ show See. The post-apocalyptic show is filming in Vancouver, the same place Momoa was living on that fateful summer day in 2007 when he was starring on Stargate Atlantis.

“It was the hottest day, July 20,” Momoa began his tale, setting the scene of how he had no air-conditioning in his apartment and was sleeping in the front room by the window. Meanwhile, his now-wife Lisa Bonet was back in California and her water broke early. She had been trying to reach him on the phone in the other room.

“I missed about 70 calls,” he told Esquire. He woke up and freaked out.

Thanks to his Stargate producer (yay for bosses who support parents!), he quickly got the last seat on a plane home, all the way in the back. “And I tell the lady, ‘Listen, I’m having a baby—make sure everyone sits down so I can get off the plane first.'”

We’re not sure if the flight attendant actually warned the rest of the passengers that this 6-foot-4 man would be running through the plane when they landed, but we can very clearly imagine this scene.

“Benjamin Bratt was on the plane!” he recalled of the Law & Order star. “He was in first class… And he was like, ‘Go, go, go.'”

Go he did. “So I come barreling out of the terminal, like the Predator, like, ‘GET OUT OF THE WAY!'”

He gave his cab driver the run-all-the-lights-I’m-having-a-baby speech that happens in the movies and raced to Bonet’s side.

At last, thanks to modern transportation—not a herd of Dothraki horses nor a giant Atlantean battle shark, unfortunately—Momoa made it to Bonet’s side just two hours before Lola was born. He even got to spend some time in the tub with his laboring partner, who was probably pretty happy he made it in time.

For the whole family’s sake, we hope the birth of son Nakoa-Wolf Manakauapo Namakaeha Momoa, a.k.a. Wolf, now 10, was slightly less dramatic.

This is a story that many couples can relate to. Unfortunately, our partners can’t always be by our sides in the days leading up to birth. Sometimes they’re on a business trip, sometimes they’re deployed, and sometimes (like in Momoa’s case) they’re working a civilian job that takes them away from home.

This is why it is so important for bosses (again, applause for Momoa’s producer) to understand that just because a woman’s partner isn’t carrying the baby doesn’t mean they don’t need to make room in their schedule for a birth.

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