ISSAQUAH – Before North Bend orthodontist Kirby Nelson even had a chance to grab his first cup of coffee the morning of April 6, he’d already unexpectedly delivered his own baby in the bathroom of his house.

“In my wildest dreams I would’ve never imagined the two of us doing something like this,” said Kirby of his and his wife’s unusual morning.

At about 3:30 a.m. that fateful morning, Sandy Owen woke her husband at their Issaquah home complaining of cramping. Having gone through one pregnancy already with her now 21-month-old daughter Anika, Sandy attributed the pains to typical pregnancy cramping and went back to sleep.

Two hours later Sandy woke her husband again.

“She said, ‘I think I’m having a contraction, but I don’t know,'” said Kirby.

The couple decided to time the first contractions to gauge just how much time they had to get to their midwife’s office in Kirkland for the birth. With the first contraction clocked in at 12 minutes, the couple began dressing for the car ride when Sandy began feeling odd.

Turning to a piece of advice he’d heard along the way, Kirby said he had Sandy sit in a warm bath in an effort to slow the contractions. The bath wouldn’t take too long, he thought, and when it was over Sandy could quickly get dressed and they’d be on their way. The only problem was that their new son, Carter, decided that it was time to enter the world.

“The next thing I knew she said, ‘I think I have to push,'” said Kirby.

It was now around 7 a.m. and the contractions were getting closer together, quickly moving from 12 to three minutes. Realizing he didn’t have time to get his wife dressed in travel attire and to the midwife’s office, Kirby said he and Sandy did what came naturally.

The first order of business was contacting the midwife again and seeing if she could meet them at the house, Kirby said. The second was dialing 911.

Because his wife needed his assistance, Kirby decided to take a cue from television shows he’d watched and left the phone on the bed while he worked. He figured the operator could track the address down even though he wasn’t on the line. Luckily Liz Strain, a family friend who was going to watch their daughter, arrived and grabbed the phone.

Kirby said in all the confusion surrounding the phone calls and pending delivery, Sandy was rock solid, even calmly relaying answers to questions being asked by 911 dispatchers through Strain.

Sandy attributed her calmness to the fact that the couple had already delivered a child with a midwife.

“I pretty much figured there wasn’t anything we could do … the baby was going to come anyway,” said Sandy.

As for panicking, Kirby said that wasn’t part of the plan.

“I didn’t have time to panic,” said Kirby. “You just jump in and do what you need to do and you panic later.”

In the about six minutes between making the 911 call and the arrival of the medics, the couple welcomed their healthy, 8-pound, 2-ounce son they named Carter into the world.

“The first thing I said to her when I handed her the baby was, ‘I’m not that kind of doctor,'” Kirby said with a laugh.

Kirby and Sandy said a third child is not part of the game plan. If number three does arrive, Sandy said she’ll be closer to the midwife’s office than she was for the birth of Carter.

“I told my midwife that if I do have third, I’m buying an RV and camping out in the office parking lot,” said Sandy.

Travis Peterson can be reached at (425) 888-2311 or by e-mail at travis.peterson@valleyrecord.com.