INDIANAPOLIS — Matt Gay’s wife, Millie, went into the doctor for a prenatal checkup last Saturday.

The time was getting close. The couple’s third child, their first daughter, was only a week away.

And then, all of a sudden, she was coming faster than anybody expected. When Millie went in for her checkup, her doctor told the family the baby needed to be born soon, although it wasn’t an emergency.

Gay, the Colts' kicker, was supposed to be in Nashville, Tennessee, on Sunday to play the Titans.

“I booked a flight,” Gay said.

One of the last flights out of Nashville that could get him back home to Utah in time to be with Millie for the baby’s birth. The Colts were scheduled to kick off at 1 p.m. ET, or 11 a.m. Utah time, on Sunday; Millie was supposed to head to the hospital to be induced at around 5 p.m. local time, or 7 p.m. ET.

Doctors planned to start the Pitocin drip — the drug that facilitates contractions — an hour later.

A pretty tight schedule, considering that it’s almost a four-hour flight from Tennessee to Utah, plus the time it takes to get out of the plane, out of the airport, into a car and all the way to the hospital.

But the family was expecting a long labor. Their first two children, Oliver and Oaks, took roughly 13 hours and 16 hours, respectively, according to Gay.

The tight part of it seemed to be the time between the final buzzer and the last call for boarding at Nashville International Airport.

“It was going to be tight anyway,” Gay said. “It was one of the last flights out of Nashville, and then of course, we went to overtime.”

The NFL does not allow phones or Apple Watches or any electronics like that on the sideline. Gay had no way of knowing what time it was, although a staffer kept telling the team’s kicker that he’d be OK.

In the meantime, the Colts kept calling on Gay to do his job.

Even though they knew a part of his mind was elsewhere.

“Certainly, it was in the back of my head at first,” Indianapolis special teams coordinator Brian Mason said. “Like: ‘His mind is obviously going to be elsewhere, how is he going to handle that?’”

The thing is, Gay and Millie have already been through this once before.

When Oliver, his 4-year-old and the oldest of the three, was born, he was due on Sept. 8, 2019 — the same day of Tampa Bay’s season opener. That time, the doctors agreed to induce early, and Gay left right after the final preseason game, getting there in plenty of time.

Almost too much time. When Oliver’s labor took a while, it ended up meaning that Gay only had 12 hours with his son before he had to head back to the Buccaneers to begin the week of preparation for that game.

Oaks, his 2-year-old son, was born in June.

“I haven’t missed with a child lurking,” Gay said with a smile this week.

He didn’t miss on Sunday against the Titans.

Gay, who famously goes into “blackout mode” when he kicks, made four field goals, helping the Colts salvage drives that sputtered in the red zone, prolonging the game enough to get it to overtime.

“I talked to him two different times about it, and he was very locked in, and he was able to multi-task and handle all those things, which just speaks to the mental preparation and toughness that he has,” Mason said. “He’s just always able to stay laser-focused.”

Even under a ticking clock he couldn’t watch.

When Gardner Minshew found Michael Pittman Jr. for the game-winning touchdown, relieving Gay of the responsibility of hitting a game-tying field goal, the Colts veteran kicker started moving.

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“If we didn’t make it, it would have been rough, but she said, ‘Try your best to get there,’” Gay said. “She’s amazing, she understood.”

He was out of the locker room almost as soon as Shane Steichen finished talking, headed to the airport and made his plane.

And it was a good thing he did.

Their daughter didn’t come on her brother’s timelines. This time, labor took roughly six and a half hours. She’d already beaten her parent’s expectations once; when the couple started planning to have a baby, they decided to aim for January or February, but wanted to leave a little room for it to take a couple months of trying.

Instead, Millie got pregnant on their first try.

No matter; Gay ended up making it to hospital about an hour before the birth.

Their first daughter, Cosette.

Cosie, for short.

“I love them all the same, I love my boys, it’s just a different feeling with a little girl,” Gay said. “Your heart softens immediately with a little girl.”

Cosie comes with an incredible story, a time-ticking thriller her parents can tell every time they talk about the story of her birth.

Not that they want to do it again.

“The next one, we’ll try to plan in the offseason,” Gay said.

Easier said than done.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts K Matt Gay's mad dash after Titans win to make birth of daughter