She’s ranked No. 1 in her division across the state of South Carolina in karate.

She runs a ministry of sign language at area churches to share Christianity.

She graduated with a degree in accounting at age 48 after succeeding in a starkly different career, running a household and raising a child.

Now, as part of an extra, truly personal contribution to her day job, she’s learned to sew and is making blankets for babies who she helps deliver at the AnMed Maternity Center.

Tracy Estrich is a surgical technologist who’s made a habit of delivering wonders.

Connections with families help exceptional care at AnMed

“We do everything we can to provide a wonderful experience for our patients and their families,” said Nedra Brown, assistant vice president of women and children’s services and orthopedic services. “We provide exceptional, compassionate care, and we’re always working to improve and be even better. The more we’re able to connect with the families we care for, the more we’re able to serve them. That’s what Tracy has come to do on her own – make connections. It’s amazing. And she’s not just making random blankets.”

No, what she learns about the families she cares for helps inform her choices of materials. If she notices affinity for penguins or dolphins, those animals will be in the print of the fabric for that baby and family. If she’s able to learn the mother has a deep appreciation for a kind of flower or a certain color, that will be in the fabric.

“Sometimes I know it has to be God, because I’ll hand a family something with a farm print and they’re like, ‘How did you know I live on a farm?’” Estrich said. “I want to be on ‘Project Runway.’ That would be so cool. But those people are so mean.”

Estrich was watching “Project Runway” when she got the feeling she could be a fashion designer. She leaned on her charge nurse, Amy Heintz, to connect with Amy’s mother, Barb Heintz, who used to work in the mother-baby wing, too. Barb Heintz taught Tracy Estrich to sew.

Giving back to the Upstate SC community

The first project Estrich mounted was to make a dress for her granddaughter.

She quickly moved on to sewing blankets for AnMed babies. The AnMed Foundation reimburses her for the expenses.

“I wanted to figure out a way I could give back to the community, just something that they could keep, something where they could remember when their baby was born – because it’s a special time when they’re having a baby,” Estrich said. “That’s what made me do it. Just to present it to them after I’ve helped with their delivery and see their faces light up, like, ‘You made my baby a blanket?!’ – it warms my heart.”

That warm heart might seem apparent when Estrich is performing sign language, something she taught herself and has done for about 20 years after getting into it through a friend. And her will might be evident in how, in the middle of her career in health care, she returned to school to earn a degree in accounting in 2022. But the wonder that might seem to round out Estrich could be that she got into karate at age 49.

She trains under Marty Knight in Belton after studying martials arts in her 20s.

Tracy Estrich loves what she does

“I hate the gym, so the only thing that really made me feel good was karate,” Estrich said.

She also finds therapy on her more tender side. And nothing else she does seems to take the place of her true career.

Her sister, Ksha Wilson, happens to work at AnMed, too. And their mother, Barbara Hudson, was a longtime security officer at AnMed.

“I don’t know if I’ll pursue accounting or anything else really for a career because I really love what I do,” Estrich said. “I told Nedra that I wasn’t going to stop making the baby blankets. That’s something I’m going to do until I retire.”