Sen. Mike McGuire, wife ’over the moon’ to be first-time parents

Suddenly it can no longer be said there’s no one quite like the go-getting Mike McGuire.

A boy born earlier this week to the Healdsburg-reared state senator and his wife, Erika, a Healdsburg educator, shows signs of being a chip off the not-so-old block.

“We know already that this kid has a mind of his own, and he is a self-starter,” the legislator said of Connor Michael McGuire.

Last week, as the due date drew near, Connor was stubbornly in breech, meaning his head was facing up. It’s far more desirable that a newborn come into the world head first.

“We tried flipping him and it didn’t work,” his father said. “He was quite ornery and he was comfortable, and he didn’t want to move.”

A delivery by cesarean section was scheduled for later this week. But at about 1 a.m. Sunday, Erika, who works as principal of the Fitch Mountain campus of Healdsburg Elementary School, realized in an instant that labor had begun.

The McGuires got quickly to the Kaiser Permanente hospital in Santa Rosa.

“We were crying before we went into the emergency room,” said the state senator, who’s 41. “We are both criers. It was happy tears.”

McGuire said he and his wife were blown away by the care they received from the Kaiser nurses, and they are overjoyed to at last have a child.

“It’s been such a struggle to get pregnant for the past 2½ years,” said McGuire, who was elected to Healdsburg’s school board at age 19, to his hometown’s City Council at 25, to the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors at 31 and to the state Senate at 35.

“We are over the moon.”