WESLACO — Dub Elisa Rodriguez a real-life Wonder Woman.
It was Sunday, April 10, when the 29-year-old expectant mother felt something “pop” while in the bathroom.
She had just returned home from Holy Family Birth Center, a faith-based organization in Weslaco where midwives have for 36 years provided natural birth services. It’s where Elisa was prepared to give birth to her third child after experiencing contractions earlier that day.
Accompanied by her husband, 27-year-old Daniel “DJ” Rodriguez Jr., she took her bags filled with items needed for a planned water birth and short stay. The only problem was that she was just 2 centimeters dilated and instructed to labor longer.
After arriving home, DJ was asked to help his father-in-law remove the bags from their pickup truck. Elisa, meanwhile, needed to use the bathroom.
“I had another contraction, and another contraction,” she recalled Wednesday. “I felt a pop … my water broke. So I stood up from the toilet and felt him crowning.”
It was at this point that Elisa began to prepare for the inevitable outcome: delivering her own child.
“I felt the next contraction come, so I knew I had to get on my knees,” Elisa said, noting that as DJ rushed to her call for help, a video she watched years ago about an Amazonian woman delivering her own baby while on the ground suddenly came to mind. “And on the next contraction, he came out and I caught him.”
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