Hope and (diaper) change! Mom goes into labor after showing up at election booth to vote

Forget the ballot box – a Kansas voter had a delivery of her own to make just in time for Election Day.

Tessa Von Fange, a longtime voter who rarely misses an election, headed to the Shawnee County Elections Office in Topeka Monday to cast her ballot, where she unexpectedly went into active labor.

“I was 100 percent in denial until my water broke,” Von Fange told WIBW from a hospital bed, adding that she had a scheduled induction for after Election Day.

Despite her contractions being about five minutes apart, Von Fange was determined to cast her ballot. An election worker with emergency medical training brought her a ballot and stayed nearby in case she needed assistance, according to Assistant Election Commissioner Jake Fisher.

“The voter was not overly concerned because she said this was not her first pregnancy,” Fisher told the Kansas Reflector. “The first one was not quick. I think she believed that this second pregnancy would also take quite a bit of time, but it seemed to be progressing quicker than she had anticipated.”

Fisher added that Von Fange’s determination to vote delighted him and the other poll workers.

“She was spectacular. She was very adamant,” he said. “She goes, ‘I came here to vote, and I am going to cast my ballot.’”

Meanwhile, Von Fange called a family member to pick her up, leaving her husband, Chris, “shocked” and “overwhelmed” when he learned their daughter was arriving ahead of schedule.

“Just to hear from the election worker that your wife is in labor is like, millions of questions,” Chris Von Fange told WIBW.

Even amid the unexpected rush to the hospital, Von Fange made sure to leave with a “Future Voter” sticker. The couple’s daughter, Morgan, was born at 1:16 a.m. Tuesday, weighing 8 pounds, 1 ounce.

“That was the only sticker I got, but I stuck it right on my belly and came to the hospital with it on,” she said.

The experience also left the Von Fanges with a message for other voters: Make time to participate in elections, even when life gets busy.

“No matter what you have going on, there’s always a half-hour of your time that can be spent to go to a polling place to have your vote cast,” Chris Von Fange told WIBW.

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