Martina McBride and John McBride on the CMA Awards Red Carpet at "The 42nd Annual CMA Awards," on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2008, broadcast live from the Sommet Center in Nashville on the ABC Television Network. Photo courtesy of the Country Music Association.
Nov. 21, 2008 — Early in her career, Martina McBride found herself with a prime opportunity: opening on tour for Brooks & Dunn. But the same day she got that gig, she also received the news that she was going to become a mom for the first time.
"I was totally freaked out," Martina said when she was inducted this month into the Music City Walk of Fame. "I didn’t think they would want some pregnant woman on tour with them. I’m sure there were meetings and everything, but they didn’t [back out]. They went ahead and let me do the tour."
"She was really pregnant," Kix Brooks recalled. "And I’m thinkin’, ‘If she gets through this tour without havin’ this baby, I will be shocked.’ Well, we got to the last night and we’re thinkin’, ‘I guess she made it.’ And it was also a relief, ‘cause there’s always a lot of pranks and stuff at the end of the tour, and I’m thinkin’, ‘Thank goodness we don’t have to put up with all this foolishness with this. Martina won’t go there.’
"The thought’s still in my head on stage when a hospital gurney comes out with her husband, John, pushin’ it and this big belly, and in the middle of some emotional Ronnie Dunn moment like ‘I Am That Man,’ she turned it into ‘You are that fool right now ‘cause I’m havin’ a baby!’"
And she did indeed have a baby right there on the stage.
"One of those little rubber things from the dime store," Kix explained. "John ran around the stage celebrating."
Something about the newborn was not quite right.
"The baby," Martina said, "was actually dressed up to look like Ronnie."
Martina delivered the real baby in short order. Delaney turns 14 in December.