I met Dina via email when her husband received orders that they were moving to Colorado from California. She had had her oldest son at home with a nurse-midwife and wanted to do the same here in Colorado! Fortunately, her insurance covered the cost, all we had to do was wait for her to move here! I received notice late September that they were finally all moved in and ready for their first visit around 34 weeks. We got care rolling and were surprised at how quickly her due date rolled around! Dina’s due date came and went with no indication that baby was coming anytime soon! Her family came to visit hoping baby would already be born only to be disappointed! This baby was going to make the rules one way or another! Finally one week after her parents left, things seemed to be more promising as Dina told me her water had broken! We talked about what needed to be done and waited patiently for labor to start!
I went to bed early knowing I might be up all night and two hours later received a call that Dina was in labor and ready for me to come. I arrived to find Dina laboring hard but gracefully on the bathroom floor, she was doing amazing! Baby sounded great and everything was normal. We rushed to get the pool filled knowing we probably didn’t have long and shortly after, we were able to get Dina into the pool. I could tell we were getting close because she was wearing down and ready to be done! Shortly after Dina got in the pool her toddler woke up and started to cry and I could tell it worried Dina. I encouraged her to keep her focus as dad went in to calm him down. She informed me that her son can never go to sleep without her and my heart hurt for both of them since there was nothing she could do for him at this point in her labor! The next contraction brought on an urge to push and she gave it her all anxious to be done so she could calm her son. That contraction came and went and we waited patiently for the next one. Her son calmed down enough to come into the room and be present for the birth and with the next contraction, Dina pushed out her little one! After some acrobatic work to detangle baby from her cord, baby finally came to mom’s chest and she discovered it was a girl!! Her son came to the side of the pool fascinated with what had just happened and pointed to the bundle in mom’s arm and shouted, “baby!” We all shared a laugh and helped mama recover from her very fast birth! Baby was born at 1:08am just 3 ½ hours after labor started, weighing in at 8#1oz! Welcome to the world sweet Athena, thank you for allowing me to be present for such a special moment as this!
