Hospitals usher in first babies

Left, Eddy Pierre and Juna Delinois can't get enough of Elijah Pierre at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center. Right, Yolanda Paz and Israel Aguilar welcome a sleepy Jayden Aguilar at Beth Israel Deaconess center. (Left: John Blanding, Right: Yoon S. Byun / Globe Staff)

Elijah Jamil Pierre, 12:03. Jayden Israel Aguilar, 12:16

As revelers rang in the New Year with uncorked champagne and renditions of "Auld Lang Syne," some women labored into the wee hours, giving birth to the region's first babies of 2009, with one newborn clocking in at 12:03 a.m. at St. Elizabeth's Medical Center in Boston.

"The due date was actually next Thursday, the 8th," said Juna Delinois, mother of Elijah Jamil Pierre. "We decided to induce a little early so we could have an '08 baby, but he had other plans. He just decided that he was going to hold off til '09. He wasn't ready in '08."

Close behind was Jayden Israel Aguilar, who arrived at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center at 12:16 a.m. weighing seven pounds, four ounces and measuring 19 inches.

"We usually spend New Year's with family and friends and food everywhere," said Yolanda Paz, Jayden's mother, a 38-year-old financial services coordinator for patients at McLean Hospital in Belmont. "That didn't happen for me this year. I was at the hospital. But you better believe it was a good feeling."

Area hospital officials said the St. Elizabeth's birth was believed to be the first in Boston, with Beth Israel's second. (Last year, Beth Israel claimed the mantle of hospital with the first baby born in Boston.) Massachusetts General Hospital produced a baby at 12:37 a.m. Shortly thereafter, hospital administrators said, their efforts to determine which hospital had this year's first baby wrapped up.

"Every year we're pretty much on e-mail and calling each other around midnight," said Holly Brown-Ayers, a spokeswoman for Brigham and Women's Hospital. "Once one [hospital] has a birth, we call off the search."

The interest in first baby of the year is deeply entrenched.

"A baby is a symbol of hope and hope for the future," said Arch MacInnes, a spokesman for Massachusetts General Hospital.

"Everyone loves a baby."

"It's in our culture - New Year's is a time of new beginnings, and what symbolizes a new beginning better than a new baby born on the new year?" said Melanie Franco, spokeswoman for St. Elizabeth's Medical Center.

Paz, who makes her home in Chelsea with her two other children, Jose (born, Dec. 9, 2003) and Jailene (born April 12, 1996), said the arrival of Jayden yesterday took her by surprise. He had been expected to arrive about Jan. 5. But after an ultrasound on Wednesday, she was sent to Beth Israel to be checked. There, she went into labor shortly after 3 p.m., she said.

"It didn't even pass through my mind that I'd have a baby on New Year's," she said.

She said she had no clothes with her, no camera to snap photos of Jayden. Her other children were with a cousin in Brockton.

But her fiance, Pedro Israel Aguilar, was with her for the birth, and jubilant hospital staff made for a merry scene.

"Everyone was really happy and excited," she said.

Jayden has a shock of hair, she said. He was quiet and sleepy yesterday. He was also busy. In addition to joining the world, he was being used as a model baby for a hospital class in baby bathing technique, she said.

"He was chosen as the one," she said.