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Next time make it instant

Mom delivers 9th baby in SUV because dad delays to brew coffee

Updated: 11:16 a.m. ET Sept. 27, 2007

CHARLESTON, W.Va. - David Harrah thought he had time for coffee before racing his pregnant wife and their eight children 15 miles to the hospital.

Think again, Daddy.

Sherry Harrah gave birth shortly before dawn Tuesday to the couple’s ninth child inside the family’s new Ford Expedition alongside U.S. 119 in front of a Toys ’R’ Us.

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“I told him I wasn’t going to make it,” Harrah said Wednesday from her bed at Charleston Area Medical Center’s Women’s and Children’s Hospital. “He didn’t know what to do because my water broke.”

As a labor and delivery nurse at Cabell Huntington Hospital, Harrah said she knew time was of the essence.

“I told him it was his fault, that if he’d have left when I first told him to, this wouldn’t have happened,” she said. “But he had to make coffee and he wanted to wait until 6:30 to get the kids on the bus. I kept telling him, ’We need to go.”’

Harrah and her husband, who is a stay-at-home dad, named their 5-pound, 10-ounce baby girl Carlee, “after the car.”

Harrah said Carlee may be the last addition to the Alum Creek family that includes Kaleb, 16; Judy, 15; Chelsey, 11; Mikaya, 9; Colton, 8; Brooklin, 5; Alexia, 3, and Chase, 18 months.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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