It's a boy: Winnipeg baby born minutes after mom's water breaks
Baby boy arrives a week early and on a living room couch
Welcoming a new baby is an exciting time but a Winnipeg couple wasn't expecting it to come quite so quickly.
Dante Beach's entrance into the world, a week early and on a living room couch, was not what his parents were expecting.
"He was breathing. He was crying. He was looking. I was happy. I got my boy, I was happy," Dante's dad, Sean, said.
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Last Friday Dante's mom, Brittany, woke up at around 4 a.m. to some pain. At first she thought maybe the baby in her belly was hungry, but soon realized it was labour.
By 7:30 a.m. she began keeping track of her contractions and phoned her doctor. The contractions were still six to eight minutes apart, so the doctor told her to relax until they started to come closer together.
But that never happened.
"I said, 'Okay we are going to have to go to the hospital'," Brittany said.
Before they could get the sitter for their three-year-old son or their car packed, Dante was ready to say hello to his parents. Sean, still on his way to pick up the baby sitter, got a text around 3 p.m. from Brittany saying her water broke.
He turned around and rushed home.
"[Sean] was on the phone with 911 and the guy was on the phone was like, 'Why is she screaming? Get her to stop screaming.' And I'm like, 'The head's right there. He's coming'."
It was time for dad to step up and get ready to catch baby.
"You don't have time to think. You just do it because life is in your hands here," Sean said.
On the family's living room couch, Dante let out his first scream in his dad's hands at 3:11 p.m.
"She was screaming, 'What is it?' I just stopped because I got a boy out and I couldn't be happier," Sean said.
The paramedics arrived right after to help dad with the umbilical cord, and mom and baby made their way to St. Boniface Hospital.
Brittany and the healthy baby boy were able to go home on Sunday.
"It was nice just to be home with my boys and all be under the same roof and sleep," she said.