Ever the consummate speaker, Bill Clinton made sure to tell the perfect story when he accepted his "Father of the Year" award at this week's Save The Children fundraiser. After Chelsea gushed about her dad and presented him with the honor, he went on to tell the audience Chelsea's birth story.
As Parade Magazine reported, the former president said he came home from a governors' conference in Washington, D.C., and Hillary’s water broke 15 minutes later. Once they got to the hospital, the Clintons found out Chelsea was breech, and she would have to be delivered via caesarian section. Though dads weren't allowed in the operating room, Clinton would have none of that.
“If you send her into that room without me, I think you’re making a big mistake … I want to see my daughter born,” he recounted saying.
Eventually, he was allowed inside to hold Hillary's hand, and the hospital even changed its policy for future dads-to-be who wanted to see their babies come out.
"From that day to this, I have believed without the shadow of a doubt that it was the greatest thing that ever happened to me,” Clinton said.
The former Secretary of State wasn't there to see the speech, but true to form, Hillary sent a text to mark the occasion. “I [received] a text message from Hillary saying, ‘Congratulations. I think you deserve this.’ In our family, that’s a very big deal,” Clinton said.
The honor was announced back in January, when the National Father's Day Committee cited the former president's philanthropy as the reason for their selection. They are an organization dedicated to "promot[ing] the celebration, observation, and preservation of the holidays Mother's Day and Father's Day by focusing on the value of good sound parenting," and former award winners include other former presidents -- Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy -- as well as Humphrey Bogart, Yogi Berra and Wolf Blitzer.
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