Mom Remembers Giving Birth on Side of the Road as Paramedics Raced to Help: 'No Way This Is Happening'

While giving birth on the side of the road, Kathryn Norsigian tells PEOPLE she remembers thinking, "This is a dream"

"This is a dream," Kathryn Norsigian, a 35-year-old former teacher, remembers thinking while giving birth on the side of the road at 5 a.m. on April 5. "There's no way this is happening right now. We're not having a baby in the car."

Minutes earlier, her husband, Jordan, 37, an inventory specialist, had been driving Kathryn, then 39 weeks pregnant, to the hospital as she struggled with intense contractions.

"I was very scared," Jordan, who pulled over at the instruction of a 911 dispatcher, tells PEOPLE in this week's issue. “Kathryn went from breathing through the contractions to screaming through them. She was in constant pain and I didn't know what to do."

About five minutes later, paramedics arrived with sirens blaring. “I’ve never been so glad to hear a siren,” recalls Jordan. “It was such a relief just to hear them and see them pull up with the flashing lights. I thought, ‘Great. They’re going to get you to the hospital.’ ”

Related: Firefighter Helped Mom of 3 Deliver in Her Trunk During Worst Snowstorm of the Year

But the baby had other plans. “We pulled in and [Kathryn]  was sitting in the passenger seat and the car door was open,” recalls Sgt. Robin Chevrette of the Farmington Hills Fire Department in suburban Detroit. "She was yelling, screaming and saying that the baby was coming. The dad was kind of like a first base coach."

”[My colleague Tim Persichino] knelt down to look and the baby was coming," adds Chevrette. "He just came right out — within 90 seconds. Tim was able to catch him.”

"There wasn't really any time to think," says Sgt. Tim Persichino. "Your training kicks in and you do what you're supposed to do. There was really no time for emotions or thinking. It's just, 'This is my job. This is what I have to do.' Don't drop [the baby.]"

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Meanwhile, Kathryn was thrumming with adrenaline in the below-freezing weather. "I was so deep into labor," she says, "that I wasn't feeling the cold. I was partly in a state of denial."

"She was obviously in pain," recalls Persichino, "but there was a lot of relief afterwards. She was more than happy to hold her baby for the first time."

And when their baby "started to cry and bit and make some noises," Jordan says they knew everything was going to be okay.

Related: Woman Welcomes Baby Mid-Flight Weeks Before Due Date — and Birth Certificate Says He Was Born 'In the Air'

With 30 degree weather, the paramedics quickly bundled up the baby, born weighing 7 lbs., 3 oz., and showed Jordan Sr. how to cut the umbilical cord. “We applied the clamps,” says Chevrette. “And the dad was able to cut the cord in the car.”

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Now three months old, little Jordan is getting stronger by the day. The baby boy with a big appetite has learned to hold his head up and is already trying to roll over. “We call him Little Grunt because he grunts a lot,” says his proud dad. “That's his thing. It’s really funny.”

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