What's so special about Bowen Beach?

“I started to get nervous,” Carrie Beach said.

Sure enough, flurries fell Sunday and by Monday morning last week all of metro Atlanta was snowed in. Northside Hospital Forsyth, where the 33-year-old mother was scheduled to give birth, had issued a “code white.”

The best thing to do, the Beaches thought, was get a hotel room close by, but nurses and doctors had taken them all. Scott Beach parked his truck on the street fearing he wouldn’t be able to drive down the icy hill from their home in Alpharetta. Carrie Beach’s father, Jim Riegler, parked close to the subdivision exit.

And so at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 11, -- their three young kids and four old dogs safe with Riegler – Carrie, her mom, Lyn, her mother-in-law Deni, and Scott headed for the hospital.

They lumbered north on Ga. 400, taking note of the abandoned cars and trucks. Forty-five tense minutes later, they arrived at the hospital. By 10 a.m., Carrie was in a room watching videos of 8-year-old Bella and her younger siblings Bryn and Brody sledding at grandpa’s house.

Carrie and Scott were high-school sweethearts who lost touch after Scott Beach went to Louisiana State University. They were reunited in 1998 during their junior year of college and were married just as Scott Beach was entering medical school to become an interventional cardiologist.

The children seemed to come almost as often as the couple moved over the years. They were preparing to move here from Neptune, Fla., when Carrie discovered she was pregnant.

At precisely 1:11 p.m. on Jan. 11, 2011, Bowen Beach entered the world. She was 7 pounds, 21 ¾ inches long.

Carrie Beach had wondered how the fourth baby might distinguish herself from her older siblings. Bella was clearly the oldest. Brody was the baby. And Bryn was the affectionate one. Now she knew. Bowen’s birthday would always set her apart.

“I think that’s kinda neat,” Carrie said.