Hey, baby, happy 2009
As the fireworks burst over Penn's Landing, and long before most of us even had the chance to break any of our New Year's resolutions, the first babies of 2009 were being delivered at hospitals across the eight-county Philadelphia region.
As the fireworks burst over Penn's Landing, and long before most of us even had the chance to break any of our New Year's resolutions, the first babies of 2009 were being delivered at hospitals across the eight-county Philadelphia region.
Luke Timothy Raines came into the world just seven minutes - about 420 seconds - after the clock struck midnight and New Year's celebrations across the region jumped into full swing.
Luke was on time, arriving on his due date at Chester County Hospital in West Chester.
He was the region's first baby born this year, weighing in at 8 pounds, 10 ounces. Luke, his mother and father, Christine and Timothy Raines, and sisters Emma, 4, and Morgan, 2, were doing well yesterday.
Not long after Luke was born, three girls were delivered in South Jersey.
Annabelle Wielehowski was the first to arrive. She was born at Virtua West Jersey Hospital Voorhees at 12:24 a.m. The first child of Julie and Kevin Wielehowski, Annabelle was 19 inches long and weighed 7 pounds, 9 ounces.
At 12:56 a.m., Anna McCracken gave birth to Dena Ray McCracken at Kennedy Memorial Hospital, in Washington Township. She weighed 6 pounds, 12 ounces.
At nearly the same time, 12:57, 9-pound, 13-ounce Alorra Louise Haynes was delivered at Underwood Memorial Hospital, in Woodbury.
Philadelphia's first baby, a boy, was born at 12:44 a.m. at Pennsylvania Hospital. At Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Drexel Hill, a boy was delivered at 1:04 a.m.
And those six were just the first wave of newborns on New Year's Day.
Regardless of whether they enjoy the lifelong good luck that, according to tradition, babies born on the first of the year earn, their parents were overjoyed by their arrival.
"This is the best New Year's we've ever had," Julie Wielehowski said.
At Grand View Hospital in Sellersville, six babies missed a New Year's Day arrival by hours or less. The last one was born at 11:53 p.m.
Those parents had the same joy of new babies - and a consolation prize of last-minute tax deductions for 2008.
