With this weather, why have a baby indoors?

Elissa Simonson couldn't make it one more step.

Although Maple Grove Hospital's sliding glass doors were only feet away, she told her husband on Tuesday morning she was going to have her baby right there on the sidewalk.

By the time Josh Simonson had run into the hospital and returned with help, Elissa was on her haunches behind a bench holding her newborn daughter.

Mother and child, who were able to check out of the hospital Wednesday morning, are both healthy, the happy father said.

In an interview Wednesday, Simonson, 25, recalled the chaos that accompanied the birth of his daughter McKenna Rose.

On Tuesday morning, the Greenfield couple drove to the hospital after Elissa, already a mother of two, started having contractions. While walking from the parking lot to the hospital's front doors, she said the baby couldn't wait.

"Elissa grabbed me and told me that she had to push and that she couldn't go any further," Simonson said. "I kind of thought that I could still get her in the building, but at that point, she started unbuckling her pants."

He said that it couldn't have been much more than 30 seconds when he ran back out again, with help in tow, and saw his wife near a bench holding their daughter next to her chest.

"I just couldn't believe my eyes. ... She seemed to be healthy and she was making little cooing noises," Simonson said.

The event was a first for the hospital, although there have been a couple of close calls in elevators, spokeswoman Jennifer Krippner said.

Nurses, a secretary and even a security guard helped out, she said.

"We're very lucky and thankful," Krippner said about everything turning out so well.