CHINA – Lynne and Michael Hamilton’s most eagerly anticipated Christmas gift arrived two weeks early.

Lynne Hamilton expected to give birth to their son Christmas Day. But she woke around 3 a.m. Saturday with severe contractions. She put on her jacket and shoes, but never made it to the pickup truck.

“I said, ‘Oh, my God, I think the baby’s coming out. I can feel the head,'” Lynne Hamilton said. “Everybody just stood there and looked at me.”

Amy Curtis, Michael Hamilton’s older sister, called 911. She and her husband, Tony, live with the Hamiltons. The couples moved to China from Florida about a month ago and weren’t able to give police dispatchers directions to their home. Instead, Tony Curtis drove to a store so he could show the ambulances the way.

State police dispatcher Sue Poulin, meanwhile, read cards with instructions on delivering a baby to Amy Curtis over the phone. But the delivery was happening faster than Poulin could read the cards.

To add to the surprise, the son the Hamiltons expected to name Dylan turned out to be a girl.

Once delivered, the baby was blue and wasn’t moving or crying. Poulin gave Curtis further instructions. Curtis cleared Sara’s airways and tied the umbilical cord by the time the ambulances arrived. The adults woke up the children – Heather Hamilton, 12; her brother, Michael Jr., 5; Hanna Curtis, 10; and her sister, Toney, 7 – who apparently were unaware of the drama in the living room.

Later, at Inland Hospital in Waterville, Amy Curtis, previously wary of anything related to medicine, would joke about the delivery.

“I said to the nurses, ‘If you need anything, I’ll be on call,'” she said. “The nurses said, ‘We go to school four years for this!'”

The healthy 7-pound, 8-ounce girl was back at home Tuesday.