Babies brighten local hospitals
Babies brighten local hospitals
MONTiRiY >> Stephanie and Shawn Sanders are known for momentous “firsts.” It was love at first sight for the recent college graduates, when he held the door for her at Del Monte Shopping Center during a holiday home visit in 2007. He remembers wishing he’d said something. But he got the chance later that night when he ran into a friend, who turned out to be Stephanie’s first cousin.
This past May, as the county was deep into its first shutdown due to COVID, the couple learned they were expecting their first child. And, at 4:07 a.m. on New Year’s Day, Kaiden Kal-El Sanders was the first baby born at Community Hospital, healthy, hardy, and hale.
The baby’s first name is a gift from his father. His expectant parents were home, watching “Cobra Kai,” the martial arts series on Netflix, based on “The Karate Kid” movies. “Kai popped into my head,” said Shawn, 38, “which morphed into Kaiden. We liked the sound of it.”
Although Shawn was wearing his Superman shirt when the baby was born, “Kal-El,” Superman’s Kryptonian name, came from Mom. It may be a kind of tribute, based on how she sees her husband. “He’s tall, he’s strong, he’s handsome, and he’s in health care,” said Stephanie, 36, of her husband of nearly 12 years, and an RN in the Outpatient Surgery Center at Community Hospital. “He fixes things, he builds furniture, and he’s a quick study with most anything. He’s pretty Superman-ish.”
He also looks kind of “Clark Kent-ish” when he puts on his glasses.
“When Kaiden Kal- El was born,” said Shawn, “my dad sent me a cut- out comic of Kal-El being sent to earth. It really explained everything when it said, ‘Our world is exploding, but our baby, Kal-El, whom we fired away in that missile, will reach earth and live. He’ll have superpowers there’.”
Pandemic pregnancy
When Shawn and Stephanie Sanders learned they were expecting their first child during a pandemic, they felt an alchemy of excitement and fear. So, they stayed home, when they weren’t working, and took advantage of the natural surroundings of their Las Palmas home, hiking in the Toro Hills.
“I’m a marriage and family therapist, and Shawn’s a nurse, making us essential workers, who had to go into work,” Stephanie said. “It was kind of scary since everything about the pan
demic was unknown, and people were panicking. I remember feeling afraid to go into work once I knew I was pregnant. It was a tense time trying to figure out how to navigate that.”
A lthough Shawn followed the protocols established by Community Hospital and took the necessary precautions when going from work to home, he said, “The worry was always there with my wife pregnant and me understanding the uncertainty of the pandemic. It’s such a good feeling, now, to know my son and my wife are healthy.”
The pandemic was not their only problem. In August, lightning struck, igniting the River Fire, which required the Sanderses to evacuate their recently remodeled home. For a terrifying two weeks, the couple and their cats stayed with Shawn’s parents in Marina, hoping for the chance to return to Las Palmas and prepare their baby’s nursery.
“As we were leaving our house, the fire trucks were arriv ing,” said Shawn. “We’d moved to that neighborhood because we knew it would be a nice place for a child to grow up. It was surreal to see this special place, where we’d become connected to the community and the landscape, going up in flames at the end of our street.”
The Sanders house was spared, so Kaiden Kal-El will get to grow up in Las Palmas.
Harbinger of hope
On New Year’s Eve, while Shawn was working in the Outpatient Surgery Center, Stephanie came into Community Hospital to receive a stress test. A baby monitor confirmed that the cramping she was feeling was due to contractions, so Stephanie called her husband to let him know it “was time.”
“It was scary,” she said. “I’d never had a baby and didn’t really know what to expect. And, due to COVID, the hospital seemed empty, with no visitors, no people waiting. But the staff was so amazing with their teamwork and constant attention.”
Soon, Stephanie shifted from being scared to being in awe, she says, of the little boy who had come despite all the challenges of last year.
“It’s like the Christmas story,” said Shawn, “with this little Super- dude arriving right when we need this new life.
“We want him to live the life of Superman, to be a loving, compassionate, strong-willed person. It’s so meaningful to me that he was born in this incredible hospital where I work, on New Year’s Day, as the most significant statement that with the arrival of our son, we have been given a new beginning.”
The county’s first 2021 baby
A Salinas mother gave the staff at Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System another reason to celebrate the New Year. Maria Flores Velasco gave birth to a baby boy at 12:06 a.m. New Year’s morning, making Manuel de Jesus the first baby born in Monterey County in 2021.
“2020 was a tough year for all of us,” said Dr. Ken Jones, delivering physician from SVMC Healthcare for Women. “Bringing new life into the world is always a joy and being a part of this first delivery of 2021 is especially significant as we all look forward to a better year ahead. It has special meaning for me.”
Flores Velasco shared that Manuel is her first boy and he will join three sisters at home, two twin girls who are 8 and her oldest daughter who is 14. When asked what it is like to have the first baby of 2021, she smiled and replied “Bien.” She also thanked the nurses at Salinas Valley Memorial helping to care for her and her newborn. The nurses were equally grateful to be a part of the celebration.
“This birth was like a breath of fresh air for all of us,” said Krista Paulo, RN who works in the Level III NICU. “With COVID, we have seen so much tragedy this year, so to have this perfect, healthy little baby and mom doing fantastic just minutes after ringing in 2021 gives us hope and inspiration that this will indeed be a better year ahead.”
Baby Manuel de Jesus weighed six pounds, four ounces at birth and was delivered less than three hours after mom arrived at the hospital on New Year’s Eve.