A Saanich couple are the proud parents of British Columbia’s first baby of 2014, brought into the world just seconds after midnight.
The official time of Daryl Yen’s birth was rounded up and recorded as one minute past midnight but he was actually born about 20 seconds after the clock rang in the new year, say his parents Daisy Tsai and Jason Yen.
“I just kept watching the clock to know the time, whether it would be the last day [of the year] or the first [of the new year],” Yen said.
Tsai, 26, is a piano teacher and Yen, 30, is a dentist at Victoria’s Mayfair Dental Centre.
“It’s good to have a baby any time. It doesn’t matter what day,” Yen said. “As long as we have the baby, we are happy.”
Baby Daryl was delivered by caesarean section, an emergency procedure after Tsai arrived at the hospital about 4:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve to be induced for labour.
After a few hours, it was decided that a C-section was the best option for the baby.
The New Year’s Day baby boy weighed eight pounds, five ounces at birth, and was about 20 inches long.
The baby’s tentative name, Daryl, is after that of the fictional character Daryl Dixon from the AMC television series The Walking Dead, Yen said.
If due dates had any bearing on when babies were actually born, Tsai and Yen’s baby would have been born on Dec. 20, 2013, and missed all the New Year’s Day hoopla.
And just down the hall on Victoria General Hospital’s mother and babe ward, the Van Tassells’ baby girl Emily, born on New Year’s Eve, would have been born well into the new year — her due date was Jan. 5, 2014.
Neither set of parents at Victoria General Hospital on Wednesday said they had a preference whether they had a New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day baby.
Tsai joked her only concern while in labour was that the baby be born “as soon as possible.”
Emily Van Tassell was born at 1:20 p.m. on Dec. 31. She weighed seven pounds, three ounces and was about 19 inches long.
Proud parents Alan Van Tassell, a manager at Boston Pizza, and Cyndy Van Tassell, a public health nurse, said a caesarean section was scheduled for them. They didn’t have a choice, nor were they concerned, whether Emily was a December or January baby.
There has been debate around the supposed opportunities and challenges for children during their elementary and high school years based on whether they are born in December or January.
The Van Tassells said this is their second December baby, and they see only the opportunities of being born in December. Any perceived disadvantages of being the youngest in a classroom, for example, must be assessed by parents for their child, Alan Van Tassell said. “For us, we’re just lucky they are both healthy and happy … 10 toes, 10 fingers.”
A Mississauga mom will have first-hand knowledge of the differences after her twin daughters — born 38 seconds apart — were delivered on different days and in years.
Lindsay Salgueiro delivered baby Gabriela just before midnight Dec. 31, 2013, and her twin, Sophia, on Jan. 1, 2014, at Mississauga’s Credit Valley Hospital.
