Feeling her contractions at an increasingly rapid clip and just steps from the back door of her Eagan home, Angela Reinders realized it was too late.

The baby was coming, and it was going to happen right there on the bathroom floor.

And in the role of doctor, a 21-year-old college student with CPR as her lone medical credential and a sheriff's dispatcher relaying instructions over the phone.

Ten minutes later, Margaret Josephine Reinders entered the world in the hands of her aunt, Melisa Sturman.

"It was quite a dramatic entrance for my daughter," said Angela Reinders, 31, now a mother of two after the excitement early Saturday.

"I was four steps from the back door" and heading to the car that husband Michael had warmed up, Reinders said Tuesday.

CJ Sinner, Star Tribune
Well after the dramatic at-home birth mom Angela Reinders and daughter Maggie gathered with (from left) dispatcher Matt Ausmus, dad Michael Reinders and Eagan police officers Tom Nelson and Steve Lounsbury at the parents’ home Monday. The blanket was a gift from police to the family. Courtesy Eagan Police Department

Then, "I thought, 'Something doesn't feel right,' " she continued. "'I need to stay put, and maybe things will slow down.' "

But things didn't. Reinders' water broke and up stepped Sturman, who had been called a bit earlier to look after the Reinders' 2-year-old daughter so the parents could leave for the hospital.

With sheriff's dispatcher Matt Ausmus on the phone to Sturman and giving instructions, the whole shebang couldn't have gone more smoothly.

"I had my legs on the door frame, gave a couple of pushes and the baby was out," Reinders said.

Maggie, as she is called, weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces and measured 21 inches at birth, which occurred at 4:38 a.m.

"The real heroes are the sister and the dispatcher," said Eagan police spokeswoman Desiree Schroepfer.

Sturman said the dispatcher's guidance during Maggie's arrival "gave me clarity and directed me without me thinking. I mean, I was thinking, but I haven't delivered a baby before."

A fine arts and psychology major, Sturman returned home while taking a semester off from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

Any thought to changing majors or career plans?

No, not likely, Sturman said, adding, "I have a friend who's a midwife, and she said I could be an honorary midwife."