BEAVER DAM, Utah — A Utah woman gave birth in the passenger seat of a car on the side of a snowy mountain pass Thursday night while she and her husband were on their way to the hospital — and they captured the process on camera.
Katie Walker was scheduled to be induced Friday afternoon, but her soon-to-be third child "secretly had other plans to escape out the nearest exit as fast as possible," her husband Cade Walker said.
So after Katie went into labor Thursday night, the Walkers left their home in Deweyville (near Tremonton) and headed for Logan Regional Hospital. But the baby came before they could make it, so the couple pulled over about 25 miles from the hospital and safely delivered their third child.
"If you feel like baby's coming, we can call 9-1-1 and they'll walk me through this. I can do this," Cade said to Katie as they drove through falling snow behind a line of cars near the town of Beaver Dam.
And that's exactly what happened.
Cade pulled over and called 9-1-1, told them the situation, and a dispatcher talked him through the delivery process.
It likely helped that Cade is almost a certified doctor himself. He had just completed his fourth-year clinical rotations for medical school that very day — and at the same hospital that they were en route to.
"We've kind of both been training for this moment, baby. We've got this. You're doing so good," he said to Katie just seconds before the baby was born — with "a full head of hair."
Kennedy Lou Walker was born at 10:40 p.m., just one hour after Katie's first contraction. She measured in at 20 inches long, weighing 7 pounds and 8 ounces.
"There she is!" Cade exclaimed. "She is out, baby is crying... She's beautiful!"
"Oh my gosh!" Katie added, sounding overcome with emotion.
The dispatcher then advised the newborn's dad on how to tie off the umbilical cord, which he did using the elastic band from a disposable face mask.
"The baby's eyes are open, and she's staring at us as if this was the normalest thing in the world," he responded when the dispatcher asked how she was doing.
"I just had a baby in a car!" said the overjoyed mom, then when asked how she was feeling, responded, "I don't even know! That was so weird! I feel great. I actually feel great."
"I guess you can just have a baby whenever," Katie joked as the couple waited for paramedics to arrive. "Born in a snowstorm on the side of the road!"
They were then taken to the hospital in an ambulance.
The parents say Kennedy is doing well, and she's "wonderful."
"We have so many people to thank for their help in bringing Kennedy to this world," Katie wrote Saturday in a Facebook post. "Utah Fertility Center, Footsteps for Fertility Foundation, Fielding Fire Department volunteers, Logan Regional L&D staff... just to name a few. There are many more, and they know who they are. We couldn't have experienced the joy and miracles of the last 48 hours without them and their help."
The couple shared the video below with clips of the delivery, as well as from the embryo transfer last year and learning the sex of their then-future baby.
