ATLANTA — Every couple about to have a baby has a plan. You have bags packed, you have the route to the hospital memorized - all to make sure everything goes smoothly.
For Jessica and Joe, their plan fell apart pretty fast.
But fortunately for them, in a scene straight out of the movies, a good Samaritan was there at the exact right time to help them get it back on track.
On a stormy Saturday night earlier this month, Jessica began going into labor at their Buckhead home. Joe sprang into action, getting the bags, getting their son Jackson ready, getting a wheelchair for his wife to get her to the elevator and down to the parking garage - getting everyone into the car and off to the hospital.
"We're riding down Peachtree - honking the horn, caution lights on, like 'honk honk honk, please get out of the way!" Joe told 11Alive Anchor Aisha Howard in an interview.
Then, Jessica's water broke.
"I was freaked out," she told Aisha. "I was just like, this baby is gonna come. It all happened so fast - I called my mom crying, like, 'Am I gonna have this baby in this car?'"
That added even more urgency to the situation, and things really took a turn for the dramatic when Joe made a turn on their way to GA-400 to get to Northside Hospital. In the wet weather, their car hydroplaned off the road.
Fortunately, they didn't hit anything like a barrier; their car was fine.
But they were stuck in the mud.
"I got out of the car, and water was past my ankle," Joe said.
That's when Ashanti, who had been behind them as they turned and saw what happened, came to the rescue.
"We were like so scared, like 'no, no, stop, we got to see what's going on,' make sure they're okay," Ashanti's sister Chelsea, who was also in the car along with her boyfriend T.Y., said. "As soon as we stop, we're like, 'Hey are you guys okay?' The passenger jumps out, she's like, 'I'm in labor!'"
"We were so shook because this kind of stuff happens in movies," Chelsea added. "This doesn't happen in real life."
While they were coming to the rescue, Joe was still trying to get the car out of the mud.
"I see a car and I hop out of the car, cause I'm like, 'We've got to get out of here,'" Jessica said. "He's like, 'Don't you want me to try and get us out of here?' I'm like, 'No! My water's broken we have to get to the hospital."
"I like jump in a puddle of water and they're like, 'Are you okay?' I'm like, 'No I'm in labor!' I'm crying," she added. "I'm like, 'My water broke in the car! Please take us to Northside.' And they were just like, 'Get in! Get in!'"
From there, Ashanti, her sister and boyfriend were able to get them to the hospital safely. And Jessica was able to deliver a beautiful baby girl, Jolie.
But in the rush of things, they didn't think to exchange information. And Jessica and Joe wanted to give them a proper thank-you.
So they shared their story with some popular Instagram pages, and Chelsea's cousin saw the story, which she had already heard about, on the @atlscoop account.
"My cousin calls me, she's like, 'They're talking about you! They're talking about you!' So I go look at it and my eyes immediately started tearing up," Chelsea said. "Like, oh my gosh this is so sweet."
They had wanted to reach out to Jessica and Joe too, to make sure everything had gone okay with the delivery. They even called the hospital, but couldn't get through because they didn't know their last name.
Jessica and Joe said they're planning to meet up with them again now, and take them out to dinner.
"All the credit for Ashanti, Chelsea and T.Y.," they said. "Just grateful someone was there, it was just like I looked over and there they were."
"God works in mysterious ways. We are just so, so grateful that he watched over us protected us and our baby," Jessica added. "Now that like everything has settled, it's super emotional for me if I think about it too much. Because it really could've went left so bad so suddenly and I'm just glad that it didn't."
For Chelsea, she said the lesson is "always stop."
"If you see someone getting into an accident or something going on, on the side of the road, you don't know what they could be going through. They could be in shock, they might not be able to call the ambulance," she said. "I think a little humanity will go a long ways sometimes."