Jesica Hogan was expecting her 6th child in July 2017, but the birth of her only son Max was more dramatic than she could have anticipated.
Her water broke at home and even before she could reach her room in the hospital, baby Max decided that it was time to say hello to the world.
The birth took place in a corridor at the Via Christi Hospital in Manhattan, Kansas. Hogan said that she had the contractions for a few days before the birth of her son but she did not go into labor.
Hogan and her husband, Travis, initially went to the hospital when the contractions started but they went home for a few days to wait for labor to start.
Hogan has just come out with the incredible story after her birth photographer, Tammy Karin, posted a video of the entire incident on YouTube.
In a detailed blog post about the whole process on Tammy's website, Hogan writes: "I was losing faith in my ability to tell when I would actually be in labor, and losing faith that my body knew what it was doing."
One night, after days of waiting, Hogan started having contractions again but she didn't think too much of it at the time. She told Travis, her husband, that she thought labor would have to be induced. Little did she know that this particular set of contractions was a sign that baby Max wanted out of his mother's womb.
"I stayed awake contracting, yet again, until about 2 am. It was at that time that I wrote to a group of other expectant and fellow moms, complaining of those very same contractions and my fears of not making it to the hospital in time," she wrote.
"Oh, that intuition is real if only I had given some credit to that voice in the back of my head that night! Instead, I finally decided that I would just drift off to sleep for a bit, assuring myself that I would know when it was time."
Hogan says in the blog that she felt the contractions getting more intense and that's when she suddenly told Travis: "I think this is it." It was just after saying this that she felt her water break along with any sense of calm that she had. Her only worry was that she wouldn't reach the hospital in time.
Travis was the calm one in the situation and drove his wife to the hospital at 3 a.m. Hogan said that things happened so quickly that she didn't even have time to put shoes on.
She said in the post that every time she felt a contraction, she could also feel the baby moving down. No one came to the car when the couple reached the hospital so Travis ran around to help his wife out of the car.
"I told him Baby was almost there. I also said I couldn't get out, I felt as if Baby was ready to emerge. That feeling made it nearly impossible to move," she wrote.
"He disappeared for a moment into the E.R. doors. I tried to maneuver out of the passenger seat so I could somehow walk inside in the few seconds break I had between contractions."
The birth photographer, Tammy, reached the hospital right in time to capture the moment. Travis helped his struggling wife through the hospital doors and into the E.R.
"I made it just past the second set of automatic doors, into the next hall, which luckily was not carpeted like the one we had just stepped out of," Hogan wrote.
"I know at this point I said something to the effect of, "Oh God, he's here." I then started to take my pants off because I could feel my body pushing the baby's head out."
"I reached down and could feel his head crowning with my hand. I looked at my husband and said, 'Travis catch him!' Without any hesitation, he did just that as I felt my body involuntarily pushing his head the rest of the way out."
Nurses were running helter-skelter helping Hogan with the rest of the birth process. They made her lie down on the corridor floor and told her to start pushing.
"With one more push as instructed by the nurse, and the only intentional push I gave, I felt the rest of his body come out," she wrote about baby Max.
"He arrived on the floor just inside the entrance of the emergency room at 3:38 am. Less than 25 minutes from the time my water broke at home, and only a few moments after we stepped inside the hospital."
Max was "incredibly bruised" because he was born so rapidly and he took a little time before the corridor was filled with his first cries. The happy family was transferred to the labor and delivery department and everyone is doing just fine.
"It was my craziest birth, but also, the most perfect," Hogan added. "It was not at all what I had planned, but it ended without any intervention, with a healthy baby, and amazing support people by our sides. It was beautiful and I'll forever love every memory of it."