'Determined' Macon mom takes college exam while in labor

It was a test of will.

You can see it in her face, in the picture of her.

Thousands -- maybe millions -- of people have seen it for themselves on the Internet.

Tommitrise Collins, wearing a lime-green hospital gown, is perched on a hospital bed.

There's a blanket on her legs, a laptop computer at her knees.

And her eyes, they're dead-set, concentrating on the glowing screen.

You can't tell it, but she's in labor, in pain, seven hours away from giving birth to a baby girl at a Macon hospital.

She's staring at the computer because she's in the middle of taking a college exam online.

Psychology 1101 couldn't wait.

Her sister was the one who snapped the picture of the scene last Thursday afternoon and posted it on Facebook.

The photo, an image of a young woman -- a college student, a single mother-to-be, the essence of dedication on the verge of perhaps the most sacred moment of all -- went viral.

Collins, who turns 22 next month, wasn't about to ask her instructor at Middle Georgia State University to take the test later.

Collins isn't one to take the easy way out. She was a basketball standout at Westside High School. She earned a scholarship to play at the University of Texas at El Paso and later transferred to play for two smaller schools in Oklahoma.

The labor pains came in the wee hours of last Thursday. On the way out the door from her house in west Macon, she almost forgot her laptop. She waddled back to her room to grab it.

Collins figured she'd still have time to take her exam before the pain of childbirth kicked in.

She was an athlete, after all -- a 6-foot-2 power forward. She'd torn ligaments in both her knees. She knew agony.

On the basketball court, Collins' specialty was the turn-around jump shot. She also knew how to muscle her way to the hoop. The first time she wrecked her left knee was in high school, before her senior season. Then last fall at Seminole State College in Oklahoma, she tore up her right knee. That ended her playing career.

She moved home to live with her parents and this year enrolled at Middle Georgia State.

Collins, a criminal justice major with a 3.6 grade-point average, plans to graduate next fall and begin a career as a forensic scientist, a crime-scene investigator.

She had been in the hospital about 12 hours last Thursday when she felt settled enough to begin her psychology exam.

"I knew I needed to get started," she says.

It had to be turned in by 8 p.m.

Her contractions were three minutes apart when she started the test.

Within 90 minutes, though, while she was reviewing her answers, the contractions were spiking every minute.

"All I kept thinking about is basketball, and how when I was hurt all I could think is, 'I have to do this for my team,'" Collins says.

"That's how I looked at the test, 'I need to do this for me. I got to do it for my baby.' ... All I kept saying is, 'You're not in pain. You really are in pain, but you can't think that you're in pain. Just push through it, you'll be OK.' Then my contractions would end, and I would read my questions real quick and I would figure out the answer real quick, and another contraction would start."

Her mother kept telling her, "Girl, just put it down, you're hurting."

No, Collins told her, "We're gonna get this done -- today. ... I've done started this test. I'm not about to retake this test."

She had two hours to complete the exam.

The last 20 minutes were the worst.

"I was in some agonizing pain," she says.

When she finished, her doctor told her it wouldn't be long before active labor kicked in. That was about 3 p.m.

Shortly after 9 that night, curly-haired, 7-pound, 10-ounce Tyler Elise was born.

In the days that followed, Collins became something of a social media sensation.

When she found out she'd made a 76 on the test, she emailed her instructor and asked to retake it.

The instructor, she says, wouldn't let her.

"But a couple of hours later," Collins says, "she saw the picture that went viral and she emailed me again and said, 'I'm so sorry. I just saw your picture on Facebook and how it's going crazy.' She said, 'I understand your circumstances. ... I'm using your extra credit to bump your grade up.' So now I have an 83."

In a statement, Middle Georgia State President Christopher Blake, mentions Collins' "perseverance," how it was "commendable and emblematic" of the school's "can-do" ways.

"We offer her our heartfelt congratulations," Blake says.

Collins says the Facebook picture has done more than buoy her GPA. It has inspired others.

"They see somebody that's really determined," Collins says. "That's the only word you can have for that."

She thinks the photo especially struck a chord with young women who quit school because they were pregnant.

"There are so many people who have reached out to me and said, 'I got pregnant when I was young, too, and I just felt like I couldn't do school anymore,' and they just gave up," Collins says. "I feel like I'm their motivation to start again."

National and international news outlets have emailed and called her -- ABC's "Good Morning America," CBS, the Huffington Post, CNN, the New York Times.

"She became famous for having a baby," her dad, James Scott, says.

"Be nice," he adds, grinning, "if she was getting paid for it."

To contact writer Joe Kovac Jr., call 744-4397.

This story was originally published November 19, 2015 at 7:26 PM with the headline "'Determined' Macon mom takes college exam while in labor ."