Just a few more minutes and Ari Payton Smith might have been born in a nice, soft bed in the clean confines of Magee-Womens Hospital in Oakland.

But Ari wouldn't wait. So she was born in the front passenger seat of her great-grandmother's Pontiac Aztek, while it was sitting in rush-hour traffic Thursday afternoon on Forbes Avenue.

"We didn't get stuck until we were right here," Ari's mom, Taylore Rullo, 25, said yesterday from the comfort of her hospital bed as her grandmother, Pat Rullo, cradled Ari a few feet away. "We just couldn't get [past] the last couple of cars at the last light. We were less than two blocks away."

Taylore hadn't expected this birth to be dramatic at all. She already had two sons, Hunter, 4, and Maddox, 1. And she had been making regular trips to Magee for checkups. In fact, she had been to the hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday, but she had been sent home both times because she "wasn't in active labor."

Things got active Thursday.

Shortly after 4 p.m., at her grandmother's home in Crafton, Taylore realized she was about to give birth.

"I heard her call for me," Pat Rullo said. "And she said, 'We're not going to make it.' And I said, 'Yes, we will.'

"We were doing great until we got near the ramp here at Forbes Avenue. And then we hit traffic, and it put us at a stop. Taylore was in [the passenger seat] in labor. She put her feet up on the dashboard and the seat back and her water broke. And Ari was born right there."

Pat Rullo was steering the SUV with her left hand, shouting to a 911 operator on her cell phone, which she had pinched between her shoulder and her jaw, while at the same time reaching over and holding the baby's head.

Still, she didn't want to be an unsafe driver.

"I was in so much pain, and I was begging her to drive up the side or through the middle or anything," Taylore said. "[The other drivers] will understand that it's an emergency. But she said, 'I can't, I can't.' "

She said the entire experience, from the first pains in Crafton to the birth of Ari, happened very fast.

"We went from 'completely fine' to 'baby in the seat under us' in 16 minutes," Taylore said. "She was crying immediately, so that was great."

Once the child was born, the Rullos waited in the car for paramedics to arrive. They used the 15 minutes to collect themselves and clean the baby. They also had to wave off a few passing motorists who rudely challenged them for disrupting traffic.

One passer-by -- "the shoelace guy" -- offered help.

"There was a guy who stopped who wanted to know if he could help," Pat Rullo said. "I was looking for a string or something to tie off the [umbilical] cord. The next thing I knew, there was a shoelace in my lap, and I never saw him again."

Taylore, who lives in Imperial, said the family had not settled on a name for the child until after her sudden arrival Thursday.

"'Ari' means 'God's lion' and 'Payton' means 'aggressor,' " she said. "And she barged into this world like God's lion. After being nine days late and then deciding, 'I'm coming right this second.' "

The little girl, who weighed 6 pounds 8 ounces and is 191/4 inches long, is a fifth-generation daughter, and by all accounts is "a beautiful, healthy baby."

Taylore, who said this will be her last child, said she is eager to tell her daughter the story of how she came into the world.

"I can't wait to tell her how exciting it was," she said. "I just hope it's not an omen for how stubborn she'll be as she gets older."