Andrew and Joanne Mihlstin’s baby was determined to arrive today and nothing was going to stop her – not even the lack of a hospital bed or a doctor.
Hannah Brittany Mihlstin was born in their Jeep, just a few minutes from Exempla St. Joseph Hospital where they were expecting to deliver.
They took the long drive from Conifer to Denver in 25 minutes, dodging cars and going 90 miles an hour along the way.
Joanne Mihlstin’s awoke at about 2:30 a.m. to find her water had broken. An hour later the mother of two older children started contractions and forced her husband out of bed.
“I’ve never had had a natural birth, but I knew it was going to happen before we got there (to the hospital),” she said.
Her husband sped along U.S. 285, C-470, Interstate 70, 6th Ave. and Interstate 25, hoping a police officer would stop him and give him an escort to the hospital, while he timed Joanne’s contractions.
“I’m lying to her, telling her they’re were eight minutes apart when they were actually four,” he said.
“I don’t know why he thought I believed him,” Joanne said. “I knew that baby was coming fast.”
Mihlstin screeched off I-25 and exited on Speer Blvd. when Joanne shouted, “The baby’s coming!”
“She said, ‘Either I pooped in my pants or the baby is coming,'” he said.
He reached down and felt the baby’s head, “I’m in a point of desperation now.”
As they neared the Auraria Campus, he spotted campus police officer Debra Krause’s marked car and asked her if she’d ever delivered a baby before. Krause responded: “No, but I grew up on a farm and I’ve delivered cows,” he said.
With Krause helping to deliver the baby, Mihlstin called 911 and began to throw up, “I’m freezing cold and I guess from all the anxiety of it,” he said.
Minutes later, baby Hannah was born in the parking lot.
“I was expecting her to look like a chimpanzee, but she was just so perfect,” Joanne said.
Both parents have two older kids of their own, but Hannah is the couple’s first child together and they couldn’t be happier.
“It was just so unexpected and I think we’re just more blessed that we had her this way,” Joanne said.
Her birth is even sweeter for Andrew Mihlstin because, after a suffering through cancer six years ago, doctors told him that he wouldn’t be able to have any more children or even survive for more than two months.
“It’s still a fascinating, amazing thing. I’m still flying from it,” he said.
Staff writer Karissa Marcum can be reached at 303-954-1858 or at kmarcum@denverpost.com.
