Little Dellaray Dinan was in such a rush, she made her worldly entrance in the passenger seat of a Holden station wagon, just after 3am on June 30.
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Karly Dinan woke early that morning at her Tocumwal home and felt something was off, so she woke her husband Luke so they could get going.
“Karly woke about 2am and she was acting weird, she went to have a shower and she says, we better start making our way to Bendigo,” Mr Dinan said.
Mrs Dinan had been referred to be induced in Bendigo, so they set off on the road, but decided to go “the Shepp way” in case they didn’t get there in time.
“We got to near Strathmerton and Karly said we better call the ambos, the baby’s coming ... we got to the Shepp turn-off, about 200 metres down and we ended up pulling over at the Katunga-Picola Rd intersection on the Goulburn Valley Hwy,” Mr Dinan said.
“I was freaking out like a bride on a wedding day.”
However, Mrs Dinan said Luke was “a lot calmer” than she thought he would be.
“I was dilated the morning before so I knew things were coming, but not that quick ... there was no stopping her,” she said.
She tried to push the passenger seat back to deliver the baby, but a baby capsule used for her other children blocked the seat.
Meanwhile, Mr Dinan was doing his best to support his wife and deliver the baby, but said she seemed to have everything under control.
“She was a bit stressed ... but it was like she was eating at the dinner table, you wouldn’t know she’s having a baby, like ‘I might as well have it here now’,” Mr Dinan said.
“Then I was stressing out, going ‘Oh no, what am I gonna do’.”
But everything wound up well and paramedics arriving within seven minutes of the 000 call to help deliver the baby, with the phone operator giving delivery instructions the whole time.
“I could see the ambos coming down the road, with the lights, so I started pushing ... they were amazing, I couldn’t have done it without them,” Mrs Dinan said.
“The head was out and then the ambo goes, oh we’ve got a mission here ... they were having a bit of a joke at the same time, but they couldn’t believe how chilled Karly was,” Mr Dinan said.
“There were no problems, (Dellaray) came straight out and laid her on her lap.”
The family was transported to Goulburn Valley Health, where they were welcomed into the ambulance bay to applause from the other paramedics.
Mum and baby were checked over and given a clean bill of health, with little Dellaray weighing in at 6lb 8oz.
“I can’t explain the experience ... it was very surreal,” Mrs Dinan said.
“We’re both over the moon.”
The family hopes to leave hospital on July 1 and return home to Tocumwal, where Dellaray’s brothers, four-and-a-half-year-old Dawson and two-year-old Mackauley, will get to meet their sister.
Grandad Craig Dinan said the whole family was very excited to meet the new arrival.
“I’ve had three boys and they’ve got two boys and now three kids ... we’re proud of them,” he said.