2024 New Year's Baby Arrives with Big Story
- Category: Patient Stories
- Posted On:
- Written By: Tammy Nunez
Sydney Banks hadn’t planned on having a New Year’s baby even though she stepped on campus at North Oaks Medical Center on Saturday, Dec. 30, in her final trimester of pregnancy with her third child.
She wasn’t headed to the Labor & Delivery Unit. Banks, whose baby was due to deliver on Sunday, Jan. 14, arrived that day to see her dad Sidney, whom she is named after. He had been involved in a car accident that morning and had multiple traumatic injuries.
“That was a lot to process,” Banks described.
Banks joined her family, who had kept vigil at his bedside since the accident. She left late Saturday to get some rest.
By the next morning, she was having contractions and was on her way back to the hospital. Banks had planned to stop by her father’s room first.
“My mom was like, 'You don’t need to go see your daddy. You need to go to the [hospital] and take care of your baby,’” Banks recalled.
She did just that.
Her baby, Christian Raayaun, rang in the new year as North Oaks Medical Center’s first of 2024, arriving at 3:30 am.
He weighed 7 pounds, 4.6 ounces and measured 20 inches long. Christian will soon meet sister Xyion, 7, and brother Xyier, 4, who were eagerly awaiting his arrival.
A team of caregivers presented Banks with a basket of baby care essentials and supplies, as well as a keepsake frame and “North Oaks Medical Center Baby New Year 2024” onesies.
His grandfather also wanted to meet him. While Christian rested in the nursery with Certified Nursing Assistant Revva Grant and Staff Registered Nurse Shanna Morrow caring for him, Banks visited her father and Christian’s grandfather in the hospital’s Surgical Intensive Care Unit on Tuesday, Jan. 2.
No one had slept much in the previous 24 hours – except maybe baby Christian – but a sense of joy filled the room as the family bonded over life.
Banks held her dad’s arm and smiled as he told stories about Banks and her siblings as children to the roomful of visitors. It’s the continuation of a connection that started the day Sydney named what he thought would be his final child after himself.
“We’ve always had a special bond,” he shared.
Though he had several more children after Banks, the two have always remained close, and the tale from the first day of 2024 is another chapter.
They marveled over the strange turn of events that resulted in the family being treated by North Oaks in two different ways.
While one was battling traumatic injuries, the other was undergoing a fast and furious labor across the hospital campus, with the support of Dr. Kimberly Hodge with North Oaks Obstetrics & Gynecology (pictured above), as well as Labor & Delivery Staff Registered Nurses Laura Fontaine and Alexis Borne.
Though neither Sidney nor Sydney thought they would ring in the new year at North Oaks, it all worked out.
“I was expecting [Christian] around the 13th or 14th, but God knew when it was time for him to come,” Sidney shared.
Click here to learn more about North Oaks Women and Children's Services, or call North Oaks Public Relations at (985) 230-6647.
Pictured, from left, are: North Oaks Certified Nursing Assistant Revva Grant, Mother Sydney Banks, Baby New Year Christian Raayaun Banks, OB/GYN Unit Staff Registered Nurse Megan McClendon and Nursery Staff Registered Nurse Shanna Morrow.
