Samantha Luke thought she peed her pants.

She had just put her hand on the bathroom door in an Indiana gas station when it happened. She hurried inside, forgetting to lock the door, and her mom walked in on her and asked what happened.

I think I peed my pants, Luke said.

Get in the car, her mom said.

Luke slept through the whole car ride. It wasn’t until they got to Champaign that she realized her water broke.

Griffin Knox Luke was born 28 hours later, on April 5, in Carle Medical Center. He was six weeks premature and weighed 4 pounds, 13 ounces.

Because he was premature and so little, hospital staff members tried to rush Griffin out of the delivery room, but the doctor stopped them and laid Griffin down on Luke’s chest for a few seconds before they took him to the neonatal intensive care unit.

One year and 16 days later, Luke waited in the lobby of the 217 Tattoo Company as Lacee Cruson, Luke’s best friend and Griffin’s godmother, tried in vain to stop Griffin from crawling around the floor. Luke was going to get a tattoo of Griffin’s name on her left arm.

“He’s pretty much the best thing that ever happened to me,” she said.

Luke named her son Griffin Knox because it sounds like a football player or movie star’s name. It’s unique, and she likes that.

Griffin was kept in the NICU for a month with a heart monitor, breathing aids and a tube down his throat, and cords crisscrossed his body. He couldn’t eat on his own at first.

Sometimes he would hold his breath, Luke said, which would cause his heart rate to drop.

Luke basically lived at the hospital during the two months Griffin was in the NICU. She woke up at 7 every morning and stayed at the hospital until 1 a.m., when she went back to the house she shares with her mom to sleep.

After a month, Griffin was healthy enough for Luke to take him home.

“That was the longest, scariest car ride of my life,” she said. “I didn’t want to hit any potholes.” She drove about 20 mph the whole way home. “I got honked at a lot.”

Griffin still has some health problems — he has reactive airway disease and needs to get breathing treatments with a nebulizer every four to six hours — but his weight is up to 25 pounds, and he acts like pretty much any one-year-old boy.

“The first time he laughed, I cried,” Luke said. He was three months old, and Luke couldn’t get him to laugh. It took Luke’s mother tickling him for Griffin to let out his first “hilarious chuckle.” Now, Luke said, Griffin laughs all the time.

Even though Griffin is usually happy, he has a little temper and can get ornery. When he cries and can’t fall asleep, Luke plays “Tears Don’t Fall” by Bullet For My Valentine, which gets him to sleep every time. When Griffin is crying, “Love the Way You Lie Part II” makes him stop.

Luke and her son live with her mom in a house in Champaign. Luke goes to Concept College of Cosmetology, and wants to be a hair technician like her sister after she graduates from the program in November.

Griffin goes to daycare when his mom and grandma are at work. Even though he has some recurring health problems, Luke said he has no problem playing with other kids.

As he waits for his mom to get her tattoo, Griffin exerts all his effort to squirm out of his godmother’s lap. He recently celebrated his first birthday, which had a pirate theme.

Luke has another tattoo, this one on her right foot. It’s of three stars, representing herself, her mother and her sister.

“It hurts a little bit,” she told the tattoo artist, Eric Carter, as he marked her son’s name into her arm, adding the fourth star to her family’s constellation.