CULLMAN, Ala. -- "I call him my miracle baby," mother Lauren Allen said about her newborn son Elijah Matthew.
Elijah was born on the shoulder of Interstate 65 . Lauren said she didn't expect him to arrive until his due date, March 26th. "Then I actually started hurting about 5:30 this morning," she told WHNT.
Lauren and husband Mickey knew it was time to head to their hospital in Birmingham. "We jumped in the car and we were at the Faulkville exit. I was screaming. I told him I wasn't prepared for this," Lauren said.
That's when Mickey pulled over at mile marker 231, got out the car and called first responders. "By the time I walked around the car, opened the passenger door, I'd seen the baby's head."
"Then bloop! There he was," Lauren remembered. Elijah was laying right there on the seat.
"I didn't know what to say or do. He was ready to come out," says Mickey.
"But of course we wrapped him up in little blankets that I had already packed in the car," says Lauren.
Accompanied by first responders, Lauren and Mickey headed to Cullman Regional Hospital. "I told the first responders we are going to call him Eli 65," Mickey said.
At the hospital, the couple introduced Elijah's big sister, Emma, to her baby brother. "I've lost two in the last three years, so it's just a blessing," Lauren said.
"Every time I ride past that mile marker, I'll think of it," she said.
