One morning, in the very early hours, Gina Christakos awoke to the sound of a pop.
It was the day before New Year’s Eve and the soon-to-be mother knew what was happening – her water was breaking.
She quickly alerted her husband, setting in motion a series of mishaps over the next five hours, which would end in Gina giving birth on the kitchen floor in their home in Sunset Ridge.
The couple had a plan.
In the early stages of the pregnancy, a midwife was hired and after a few visits, it was determined that the baby would be born at the Birthing Centre in Calgary, about a 25-minute drive from their Cochrane home.
The expected due date was Jan. 5 and it was going to be a water birth – the lights would be low, candles would burn and the child would be born in the presence of two midwives and Gina’s mother, Patricia.
But on Dec. 30, 2017 at about 1:30 a.m., Gina’s contractions started. Her husband, John Athanasiou, began to monitor them – they were three to four minutes apart – a symptom of early labour meaning they still had time, or so they thought.
They eventually woke Patricia and by 5:30 a.m. they decided it was time to go. Athanasiou called the midwife and made plans to meet at the centre in 30 minutes but when he went out to start his car on the nearly -40 C morning, he found the car battery dead.
“Change of plans, you need to come to the house,” Athanasiou recalls telling the midwife, who said she wouldn’t be there for another 25 minutes.
As Athanasiou hangs up, Gina had another contraction. At this point she was leaning over their kitchen counter at the foot of the stairs.
“Then Pat is behind Gina and she looks down and she points at me, and I come over and we look down and we see the crowning of the baby,” Athanasiou said. “I say ‘OK enough is enough, call 911.”
Athanasiou made the call at 6:40 a.m. but after no more than two minutes of being on the phone with EMS dispatch, Gina, who moved toward the handrail of the base of the stairs, had her next and final contraction.
“I half squatted and instinct kind of took over and I felt the urge to push and I felt something and grabbed her and just knew to put her to my chest,” Gina said. “And standing the whole time.”
“She actually takes out her own baby,” Patricia said.
Meanwhile, Athanasiou was trying to figure out what to do next.
“I’m freaking out. The baby is here, we just gave birth – what’s next what’s next,” said Athanasiou. “They told me to grab a cloth, wipe the baby’s mouth, nose, clear all the mucus for the air passage. And then she wanted to hear the baby, make sure the baby is breathing. So I put her on speakerphone, she can hear Nova screaming her lungs out. Baby’s good, alive, doing good.”
“Go grab a shoe lace,” was the operator’s next instructions, Athanasiou recalls.
“So, I get my shoelace, and I’ve got the phone to my shoulder and my ear. I tie the umbilical cord six inches from the baby’s belly button to cut the flow off. Then six to eight minutes later ‘OK, here come the EMS.’ They come through the front door. They take charge.”
Not long after, their midwife arrived who took over from EMS.
It’s the first time the couple’s midwives had ever missed a birth in their entire career.
“They called me a speedy prime. It’s very rare I guess,” Gina said.
“The midwife did a good job of preparing you for that moment. Like I have three children and I had them in the hospital and I didn’t know half of things she was doing. It’s just a different way of birthing now,” Patricia said.
In retrospect, John worried what would have happened if they did manage to get their car started.
“We would have had her on the highway, because she came right away. And it was -40 outside with the wind chill.”
The family extended their gratitude to the operator who talked them through the next steps leading up to EMS’ arrival.
“I’m giving all my faith to this person I’ve never met on the phone. Hoping that their training – she was fantastic – that she knows what she was doing. She did. She knew everything. I wish I knew her name; I wish I could call her and thank her.”
“It’s just unbelievable. It’s going to be a story we tell Nova over and over again,” Patricia added.
The couples new daughter, Nova Athanasiou, was born at 6:42 a.m. weighing 6Ibs 9oz. The family and the baby are healthy and doing well.
