BORDENTOWN CITY: Family welcomes ‘Baby New Year’

By Vanessa Holt, Managing Editor
BORDENTOWN CITY — Nancy Vail-Archer was expecting a special delivery around Valentine’s Day this year, but her newborn had other ideas.
    Louis William Archer made an early appearance at 12:52 a.m. Jan. 1, the first baby of the new year in Mercer County, according to the hospital where he was born, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Hamilton.
    Ms. Vail-Archer, 33, said she already had been in the hospital because her water broke a few days earlier. New Year’s Eve, labor began, and the baby arrived shortly thereafter by emergency C-section.
    He weighed in at 4 pounds, 15 ounces, was just under 18 inches in length and now is doing well in the NICU ward of the hospital.
    “It was scary,” she said. “Neither my husband nor I expected him to come that early. We were nervous for him, but the NICU are amazing. It’s an amazing place with talented people.”
    Ms. Vail-Archer and her husband, William E. Archer III, 40, reside on Union Street. This is the couple’s first child, and Mr. Archer also has a son, Brendan, 14.
    Ms. Vail-Archer is a veterinarian specializing in emergency and critical care, and Mr. Archer is an automotive technician.
    She said the family is looking forward to birthday parties on New Year’s Eve in the future.
    “I think it’s going to be exciting for (Louis),” she said. “New Year’s Eve parties right up to his birth time.”