NATCHEZ — When expecting parents Natalie Waltman and Gavin Creel hurried into their Jeep in the wee hours of Sunday morning headed to Natchez Community Hospital from their Vidalia home, they anticipated their baby would join them shortly after arriving at the hospital.

What they didn’t expect was that somewhere around the state line on the Mississippi River Bridge, their son would decide he wasn’t going to wait until his parents got to the hospital to officially join the family.

Waltman started having contractions last Wednesday, and she phoned her doctor, who told her she was going into early labor about three weeks before her Dec. 7 due date.

Waltman called Creel, her fiancé, who works on the pipeline in Texas, to come home.

Wednesday night, the couple went to the hospital, where Waltman was kept overnight and tests showed that their baby was in good shape if he decided to come a little early.

Friday night, the couple returned to the hospital because Waltman was having contractions. The couple was sent home because Waltman had not begun dilating, and she spent Saturday resting.

“Then I woke up to her screaming to go to the hospital,” Creel said.

Waltman said when she and Creel got in the car shortly before 4 a.m. Sunday, she thought they would make it to the hospital.

“But by the time we passed the Dodge Store (in Vidalia), I knew we weren’t going to make it,” she said.

Creel said he drove onto the bridge and looked back just in time to see his son being born.

“The next thing I know she leaned over and when she raised up, she had a baby in her hands,” Creel said. “She said, ‘Aww,’ then she said, ‘Oh my gosh! What do we do? What do?’”

Waltman said she was overcome with emotion when her son was born.

“Every bit of emotion you could probably feel was inside my body,” she said. “It was the most extraordinary thing I think I’ve ever felt.”

Gavin Lee Creel, who was 5 pounds, 15 ounces and 18 inches, was born at about 4 a.m. He arrived at Natchez Regional Medical Center at 4:08 a.m.

“The nurses, doctors and a security guard came running outside, threw a warm blanket on him, cut the umbilical cord and ran upstairs with him,” Waltman said.

Aside from being a little cold, which was remedied by 30 minutes in an incubator, Waltman says little Gavin is in perfect health.

Baby Gavin joins two sisters, Kelsey, 9, Hannah, 7, stepsister, Emily, 8, and four-year-old brother, Eli.

“It’s been amazing,” Waltman said. “Everybody says we’ll have a story to tell him when he gets older.”