Just after midnight Monday morning, Michele Kessler was in the back of her D.J.’s Ice Cream shop on Portsmouth Boulevard when she heard a crash.

“I thought something had fallen in the front,” she said.

Then another crash came, and she went to the front to check it out.

She saw that the glass in the front door had been shattered, and a large rock lay on the floor. Then Kessler looked up, and saw someone trying to reach through and unlock the door.

“I never expected anyone to break in,” she said, “especially while we (she and her husband David) were still here.

“My first thought was to get out of the line of fire, especially since I’m eight and a half months pregnant. I screamed my husband’s name.”

Hearing the noise, the startled robber turned and ran n and it was fortunate that he did, as seconds later, David came barreling out of the back office with a shotgun.

The Kesslers called 911, and the expectant mother went into contractions. She was taken to Obici Hospital for about an hour and released.

They returned to their store and David Kessler placed a table and several displays in front of the broken door. He and his wife stayed in the store for the remainder of the night.

The next day they found out that they hadn’t been the night’s only victim n someone, perhaps the same culprit, had damaged the glass on the Hong Kong restaurant a few doors down. Suffolk Glass came and put new safety glass on the ice cream shop’s door, and David Kessler said he planned to install alarms in the business.

The suspect is described as a dark-skinned black male, between 180 and 220 pounds, between 5’7” and 5’10”, wearing a gray sweatshirt with a hood. Police spokeswomen Lt. Debbie George said Wednesday that, to her knowledge, no arrests had been made.