For Tracy Candelaria, of Lawrence, the New Year started like a whirlwind.

Within a four-hour stretch Sunday, a doctor told her she was both dangerously sick and about to give birth a month premature, then proceeded to save both her and her child’s life.

By Monday, life was a bit calmer. Candelaria was sitting up in a chair in her Intensive Care Unit room at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, holding her first child, Quentin Matthew Candelaria, who weighed 5 pounds, 13 ounces at birth and was Lawrence’s first baby of 2006.

Tracy Candelaria suffers from a unique variant of pre-eclampsia called the HELLP Syndrome, which can damage the liver, and, if left untreated, kill.

“She’s really doing much, much better,” Matthew Candelaria, Tracy’s husband and Quentin’s father, said Monday from the hospital.

Matthew Candelaria said the family could be home as early as Thursday.

Now, the only family members that may need comforting are the new grandparents, Matthew Candelaria said.

Sidetracked by worry about his wife and baby, Matthew didn’t call his or Tracy’s parents until hours after Quentin was born, he said.

Everyone took the news well, Matthew said, relieved that mom and baby were OK.

But Tracy Candelaria’s parents knew she hadn’t been feeling well, Matthew Candelaria said. They could sense that something may have been wrong.

“They were very worried,” he said.

But from the hospital Monday, Matthew couldn’t worry too much about the events of the past hectic day. He had a recovering wife and new baby to attend.

“I’ve gotta go,” he said before hanging up the phone. “I think Tracy needs me to hold the baby.”