"The contractions kept getting closer. I just thought, 'This can't be happening,' " she said. "I tried to put it out of my head."

When her water broke, Jessica could no longer ignore it.

Kyle raced his wife and daughter to St. Mary's. He did his best to put on a brave face, mostly to keep Maddie calm, but panic and fear raced through his mind.

"But it is four months early," he thought.

By the time they reached the hospital, Jessica was in labor. Worry turned to fear.

"I was scared," she said. "I was scared I was going to lose him."

Family rushed to be there. Jessica's mother, Deborah Brim, made the more than three-hour drive from Tifton to see her daughter and her newest grandchild.

"It was terrifying," Brim said. "We knew he was born, but that was about all we knew. Before we could get in the car, he was there."

An hour and a half after arriving at the hospital, Jessica had an emergency C-section and, at 9:15 p.m., she gave birth to William Zachary Kirk, or Zach for short.

He weighed 1 pound, 6 ounces. He was no bigger than a 20-ounce bottle of soda. Kyle's wedding ring fit snug around his son's thigh.

Jessica and Kyle spent the rest of the night in the hospital with their new son. Kyle's parents took Maddie home at about 11 p.m.

"It was a huge roller coaster that night," Jessica said. "We just wanted everybody to be healthy. We just wanted Zach to be healthy."

Second family

Zach wasn't healthy. No baby born four months premature is healthy.