All the Comforts and All the Joy

The Baby Place Welcomes Two New Members of its Team

When best friends Anniston Warnix, RN, BSN, and Sydney Foster, RN, BSN, found out they were both pregnant, they couldn’t wait to support each other through the shared experience.

“Anniston and I were due five days apart, so we got to do everything together from start to end,” Foster said.

The first-time moms are both nurses at The Baby Place at AdventHealth Gordon, and they were excited to deliver their babies at the state-of-the-art birthing center.

“I chose AdventHealth Gordon because I know the quality of care I would receive there and because I know the knowledge and skill level of my teammates,” said Foster.

Warnix shared the same sentiments about trusting the skilled physicians, nurses and team she’s worked alongside for the past two years to safely deliver her baby.

“It’s a little-known secret of how great we do things here in Northwest Georgia,” said Reatha Clary, director of The Baby Place. "It speaks volumes that nurses who work here plan on seeing the physicians here and have great experiences here."

Warnix and Foster described the unit as a supportive, close-knit family.

“We always work well as a team, uplifting each other if someone is having a hard time or struggling,” Warnix said.

When the women found out they were pregnant, their team members celebrated the news, cared for them through morning sickness and exhausting shifts and eased their minds when they had worries or concerns.

“There were four of us who were pregnant at the same time, and one delivered on the day shift, and I helped deliver her,” Warnix said. “It just melts your heart seeing them become a mama.”

Warnix was the second of the four to go into labor. It happened while she was working a night shift, four weeks before her due date.

“I was 36 weeks exactly,” she said. “Being a first-time mom, I had never felt a contraction, and I just thought it was movement of the baby. Then I felt crampy and had chills all over my body. My coworkers noticed I was ‘off’ a little. I got quiet.”

They hooked Warnix up to a fetal monitor, confirmed she was having contractions and called one of the board-certified OB hospitalists working that night to examine her.

Thanks to a partnership between The Baby Place and OB Hospitalist Group, our highly trained OB hospitalists work in partnership with AdventHealth Medical Group OB/GYN’s physicians to oversee all aspects of a patient’s labor, delivery and recovery. In addition to being able to manage deliveries and provide Cesarean sections and other emergency surgeries, the OB hospitalists evaluate the progress of labor, review test results, monitor fetal heart rate tracings and provide consistent, comprehensive, quality care to patients.

“The hospitalists are here 24/7, so there’s always a doctor on site,” Foster said.

The hospitalist confirmed she was in labor and admitted her. Warnix’s husband, Tyler, met her at The Baby Place, and her coworkers coached her through her labor, epidural and having an amniotomy, a procedure in which the obstetrician artificially ruptures the amniotic sac, also known as “breaking the water,” to help progress her labor.

“I had this idea in my head that I was going to be super anxious while in labor, but I never felt that way at all,” she said. “They took care of me, and I never had to worry.”

The couple welcomed Maverick Luke Warnix on the morning of Jan. 6, 2024.

“My baby boy came out and he was good, crying and everything,” she said.

But soon after his delivery, Maverick showed signs of being in respiratory distress and was transferred to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) at a hospital nearby, where he spent seven days before he was well enough to go home with his parents.

“It’s hard to be the patient when you’re a nurse,” Warnix said. “It’s scary because you know what can happen. But my coworkers kept me calm the whole time. I just trusted them to take care of him and myself.”

Foster, who has chronic hypertension and was considered a high-risk pregnancy, had similar confidence in her colleagues.

Throughout her pregnancy, board-certified OB/GYN provider Joy Nwadike, MD, who practices at AdventHealth Medical Group OB/GYN at Curtis Parkway, monitored Foster for preeclampsia, a complication that can endanger both the mother and baby if not carefully managed.

A few days before she was scheduled for induced labor, Foster said she started to have some swelling and elevated blood pressure, as well as the presence of protein in her urine — all symptoms of preeclampsia.

She and her husband, Brady, went to The Baby Place, where the hospitalist admitted her, induced labor and contacted Dr. Nwadike, who monitored Foster’s blood pressure and the baby’s heart rate throughout the delivery.

“It was a little scary at that point because I can see the screen and know it doesn’t look that great, and I would say, ‘I know how to try to turn myself. I know how to fix it,’” Foster said. “I was palpating my own contractions. I couldn’t help it. I love what I do as a nurse there, and I couldn’t turn off my nurse brain.”

Foster delivered a healthy Hattie Shyanne on Jan. 22, 2024.

“I had the best experience, especially for a first-time delivery,” she said. “My teammates were there with me through the whole thing and supported me, cheered me on and loved on Hattie when she came.”

More than 500 babies are born each year at The Baby Place, which is staffed each shift with a team of nurses and a technician and has 10 private birthing suites with dedicated in-room equipment, Clary said.

“We’re not just a labor and delivery center,” Foster said. “We also do recovery and postpartum care. It allows us to be with our patients from start to the end.”

The spacious rooms can accommodate family members and are outfitted with the latest technologies, such as infant warmers and wireless fetal monitoring. The center also has four triage rooms and a dedicated surgical suite and surgical team for Cesarean section deliveries.

“We always have a team ready to deliver a baby,” Clary said. “If there’s something that is concerning where we need to get the baby quickly, we’re able to do that in a faster time because we are not having to wait on a surgeon or anesthesia or an OR team. We’re able to get our patients delivered as quickly as we need to.”

The Baby Place has a dedicated Post-Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) that allows mothers and their newborns to begin bonding sooner than they otherwise would, Clary said.

“Providing that service up here on the unit so our moms are able to get babies skin-to-skin and start that bonding is important,” she said.

AdventHealth Gordon also has an Obstetric Emergency Department (OBED) for pregnant patients facing pregnancy concerns or a pregnancy-related medical emergency. The OBED gives pregnant and postpartum patients immediate access 24/7 to an in-house physician and care team prior to delivery, at delivery and during the postpartum period.

“The sooner we can get someone in there to meet their needs and find out what’s going on, the better we’re going to be able to help mom and baby,” Clary said.

Foster used the service a few times during her pregnancy.

“I had some bleeding during my pregnancy one time and because I had preeclampsia, if my blood pressures were through the roof, I went through the OBED,” she said.

The Baby Place also offers free monthly childbirth education and breastfeeding classes, as well as lactation counselors certified through the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners, who are available for consultations.

“I feel like our unit is very good at advocating for their patients,” Foster said. “We always support our patients and try to do what’s best for them and get them the help they need.”

The friends said their babies are thriving, and they’re better nurses now that they’ve experienced childbirth as patients.

“I get to follow my dreams here,” Foster said. “I get to see God’s miracles every shift that I work.”