Pull over, push, in PCH birth

Some wheels just keep going round.

More than 38 years after April Robin Sanders was delivered in a car at a Santa Barbara roadside, she gave birth to a baby girl Tuesday after pulling over near her Corona del Mar home.

Sovarae Sanders, who weighed 6 pounds, 5 ounces, was delivered by her father, Greg, in the passenger seat of a black Range Rover at 6:44 a.m. on the corner of Poppy Avenue and East Coast Highway.

“I think it’s like a genetic predisposition to delivering in cars,” Sanders said by phone Tuesday from her hospital bed at Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, though due to the strain of the experience she could not remember many other details of her own birth.

When her contractions started early Tuesday, Sanders immediately called her parents, who were in town for the birth. The Sanders needed someone to watch their children while they drove to the hospital.

They took off for the hospital, but only got a few doors from their Corona del Mar home when Sanders told her husband to stop the car.

“He was pretty calm,” Sanders said of her husband. “I was screaming my head off.”

Lee Solow was a on morning walk with his dog, Bandit, when he saw Greg Sanders jump out the Range Rover. He thought it was a kidnapping.

“There was a woman screaming in the front seat. I think it’s a kidnapping because I’m thinking, ‘What is going on?’” Solow said.

When he realized it he wasn’t a kidnapping but a birth, Lee called the police. Greg Sanders ran to the passenger side of the car, pulled off his shirt and delivered the baby before firefighters arrived.

“He delivered the kid and put it on the mom’s chest. It was amazing,” Solow said.

Sanders said it’s just in her husband’s nature to be calm. This is the couple’s fourth child, so he’s been present in the delivery room for more than a few births.

“He was exceptionally calm, a big smile on his face,” said Newport Beach Fire Capt. Bob Masonis.

The birth was over by the time firefighters arrived on the scene. Firefighters are prepared with birthing kits aboard all their rigs and are trained in childbirth, Masonis said.

Firefighter paramedics cut the umbilical cord on scene and took transported the mother and baby to Hoag Hospital. Both were doing well Tuesday afternoon.

“The baby was just healthy as can be ? just crying away,” Masonis said.