After three on-time births, a Franklin couple was surprised when contractions started more than a day early, on New Year’s Eve.
Elizabeth and Chris Senac welcomed their fourth child, George Matthew Senac, at 4:42 a.m. Friday, marking Johnson County’s first baby of the new year.
With a Saturday due date and their offspring’s timely arrivals in the past, the couple didn’t think they would have the first baby of the new year. But when they arrived at a quiet maternity ward in Johnson Memorial Hospital after 2 a.m. Friday, it dawned on them it could be the case.
An early delivery capped off what was a different kind of experience preparing for this birth, Elizabeth Senac said. The main difference in preparing for a COVID baby was going to check-ups and doctor’s appointments alone, as health care facilities limited visitors for much of the year.
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“Chris was only able to go to ultrasound appointments with me,” Elizabeth Senac said. “It was OK, though. If it would have been my first, it would have been a big deal.”
Since she is young and healthy, Senac wasn’t concerned about getting the virus during the pregnancy, but worried that a last-minute positive test could throw a wrench into delivery. A positive COVID-19 test would have meant an isolated delivery, with doctors and nurses in full personal protective equipment, she said.
Luckily, that didn’t happen. Other than some added coronavirus-related precautions in the maternity ward, baby George was brought into the world just like normal, Chris Senac said.
George Senac joins three siblings at home — Juliette, 7, Audrey, 4, and Jacques, 2. George, named for Elizabeth’s father, weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces and measured 21 inches long at birth.
Now, each birthday for George will be a reminder that they can survive anything as a family, Chris Senac said.
“We will remind the family every year that we were in a pandemic, I kept my job and everything came out OK,” he said. “We will be extra thankful later on down the road.”
