PORT ANGELES — Fireworks heralded the arrival of Indie Bo Bruner, the first baby born on the North Olympic Peninsula in 2022.
Her parents, Laura and Rusty Bruner, hadn’t expected her until Jan. 19.
On New Year’s Eve, they had decided to be in bed by 9 p.m. since, at nine months pregnant with her second child, Laura was generally tired by that time of night.
Instead, Laura went into labor at 8 p.m.
“Right at midnight, my contractions started getting a lot more intense,” Laura said on Sunday. “There were fireworks going on outside.”
Indie was born at 2:44 a.m. Saturday at home, the delivery attended by licensed midwife Mallorie Kirsch, who also took photographs of the newly expanded family.
“It was intense,” Laura said. “It was a wonderful way to start the new year.”
The baby girl weighed 6 pounds, 1 ounce and was 19½ inches long.
“It was a textbook birth,” Kirsch said, adding that both mother and baby were healthy and happy.
Neither Olympic Medical Center nor Forks Community Hospital had a birth on the new year’s first weekend.
Kirsch said she also contacted other midwives who agreed that the Bruners’ was the first.
Indie is the Bruners’ first home-birthed baby.
Her older sister, Evie Wilder Bruner, was born in a hospital in Santa Cruz, Calif.
Laura, 34, Rusty, 35, and Evie, 4½, moved to Port Angeles from Santa Cruz two years ago after they were evacuated from a wildfire.
Laura said she and her husband knew the area, having lived in Port Townsend briefly a few years ago.
Evie is now attending a local private school and the family plans to stay put for a while, Laura said.
The first baby born in Jefferson County in 2022 was Elowyn Kelly Pleines, who arrived at 8:52 a.m. Sunday at Jefferson Healthcare hospital in Port Townsend.
She is the first-born of Landon, 23, and Elysah, 24, who live in Quilcene.
Elowyn weighed 7 pounds, 4.2 ounces and was 18 inches long.
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Executive Editor Leah Leach can be reached at 360-417-3530 or at lleach@peninsuladailynews.com.
