The first baby to be born in Alberta in 2024 gave her family a dramatic countdown to midnight on New Year’s Eve by being born at exactly 12 a.m. on Jan. 1.
Alberta Health Services has announced the first three babies to be born in Alberta’s three largest cities and Isley Noelle Falk arrived sooner than anyone else when she was born at the Grey Nuns Community Hospital in Edmonton.
AHS said Isley was born weighing exactly 10 pounds.
“We weren’t expecting Jan. 1 as I was induced on Dec. 29,” Isley’s mother Laura Falk said in a news release issued Monday. “It’s crazy she hung on for so long.
“We were surprised that she was born right at the stroke of midnight. … It’s a special day.”
Falk said Isley is her first child.
Calgary’s New Year’s baby arrived 25 minutes after Edmonton’s.
AHS said Chris and Marina Qiro welcomed their new daughter Marianthi into the world at the Foothill Medical Centre at 12:25 a.m.
Get daily Edmonton news
“We were at a New Year’s Eve party when my wife started feeling pain around 9 p.m.,” Chris Qiro recounted. “We went to the hospital, all dressed up, and watched the fireworks at midnight from our room.
“A few minutes later our daughter was born — it was the best gift ever.”
Marianthi arrived in the world weighing six pounds and five ounces after what AHS described as a “brief and easy labour.”
Halfway between Edmonton and Calgary sits Red Deer, the province’s third-largest city. The central Alberta city saw its New Year’s baby arrive just after 3 a.m. at the Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre.
Victoria Dorie and Scott Beardy welcomed Bailee into the world at exactly 3:11 a.m. and she becomes the youngest of the couple’s five children.
“We weren’t sure if she would be a New Year’s baby or not when I went into labour,” Dorie said.
“There were others in labour around the same time so it was a bit of a surprise to be told we had the first one of the new year here.”
Bailee was born weighing seven pounds and nine ounces.
“We wish all of the New Year’s babies and families health, happiness, and plenty of sleep,” AHS said in a news release.