Dr. Allan Sawyer had just opened the uterus when he felt something clasped around his finger.
It was the hand of Nevaeh Atkins, who had not yet been born. “She’s holding my finger”, he told the father, Randy, who grabbed the camera just in time to capture the scene.
It happened on October 9, 2012, in Glendale, Arizona, during the C-section of Alicia Atkins, a professional photographer who had already been attended to by the same doctor during her two previous births.
Alicia posted the photo on Facebook on December 26, thinking that only family and friends would see it. She was worried that some might find it too graphic.
The opposite happened: it became one of the first viral sensations of 2013. Nevaeh, whose name is “heaven” spelled backward, was born healthy and today grows up alongside her two older siblings.