MORGANTOWN — Once Sheridan Quindell Dean got going, he really got going.
Even if his mother and father, Kristina Bruni and Quindell Dean, thought he’d never get here to be the Morgantown area’s first baby of the year for 2019.
Sheridan made his acquaintance with the world at 3:37 a.m., Tuesday, at Mon Health Medical Center.
Of course, that was after Kristina started feeling hints of contractions on the morning of New Year’s Day.
“I knew things were going to start happening,” she said Tuesday afternoon at the hospital, as she cradled a snoozing Sheridan.
“I just wasn’t sure when.”
Neither was Sheridan’s dad. He wasn’t super-antsy, but at the same time, he was.
He’s a former college football player who now coaches defensive backs for the Falcons of Fairmont State University.
That means he knows the importance of executing the game plan with a strong sense of urgency.
“Anything yet?” he’d ask.
“No, not really,” would be the reply.
Sheridan’s urgency didn’t kick in until late in the fourth quarter on New Year’s Day.
It was hurry-up offense all the way after Kristina’s water broke that evening.
The couple makes their home in the outlying Marion County town of Monongah — “The home of Coach Nick Saban,” Quindell said with a grin.
Their driveway is close to a 40-minute haul to the Mon Health Medical Center parking lot on J.D. Anderson Drive.
By the time they got to Interstate 79, then to Morgantown, Sheridan had the end zone in sight.
“I was predicting New Year’s Day,” said Sheridan’s grandmother and Quindell’s mom, Michelle Romain.
As far as she’s concerned, she made book on the bet.
“Hey,” she said, “Kristina’s water broke New Year’s night. I was technically correct.”
Kristina was too technically involved with the business of giving birth to notice.
And Quindell was likewise engaged in the act of watching his wife give birth.
The couple (and parents-to-be) got checked in after 11 p.m. that night, and a 5-pound, 15-ounce Sheridan, as said, yowled his hello at just a little more than four hours later.
“Quick and intense,” Quindell said.
Dad was churning on adrenaline.
“I literally haven’t slept since we got here and he got here. And I just changed my first diaper. I think my technique’s pretty good, actually.”
Sheridan’s now the star of this team, Kristina said.
“They handed him to me, and I just thought, ‘Oh, my gosh — this is real. I’m a mom.’ My little human. He’s perfect.”
Sheridan, meanwhile, was still catching his birthday nap.
Or maybe he wasn’t.
He arched an eyebrow at the sound of his mom’s voice.
After all, you don’t want to give away the play.
Twitter @DominionPostWV
JBissett@DominionPost.com
