Army Sergeant Zach Shryock was thrilled to hear he would be allowed to return home from Afghanistan a month before his wife's due date.
Zach, 28, had been away for almost all of the pregnancy and was looking forward to getting home to wife Brittany, in Atlanta, Georgia.
The baby wasn't due for another five weeks so he thought they would have lots of time to prepare together.
He was already making his way home and had travelled through Kuwait, Turkey and Germany on his long journey home.
While on a layover in Baltimore when he received an urgent call from Brittany, telling him her waters had broken.
"I said, 'Come to Atlanta, please. I think we’re going to have a baby today,’ " Brittany told Us Weekly.
Zach boarded his next flight to Charlotte, North Carolina and was going to catch a plane to Atlanta from there.
Meanwhile Brittany was already in advanced labour.
Then disaster struck, when his take-off to Atlanta was delayed because of a deer on the runway.
It seemed like Zach wouldn't get there in time to witness his baby being born.
But back home in Atlanta, Brittany's nurse assessed the situation and said she could hold off pushing for a while to see if Zach would get there.
After an hour and a half, Zach's flight took off and he was finally on his way.
Brittany's best friend Ally, was waiting at the airport to pick him up and drove him to the hospital.
“When I heard everyone clapping and yelling in the hallway, my eyes filled with tears," Brittany said.
"I knew my husband had made it home. It seemed like a dream when I saw him walk through the door."
Within 30 minutes of Zach's arrival, baby Myra was born.
Despite being five weeks premature, she was born in perfect health and couldn't wait to meet her dad.
