SOUTHWEST MIAMI-DADE, FLA. (WSVN) - Millions of people around the world celebrated the new year by going to parties or hosting them, but some South Florida families welcomed 2017 with their new bundles of joy.
From Miami-Dade to Broward, a couple of families rang in 2017 waiting, not for a ball or orange or anchor, but for the arrival of a new member.
Like Nishon’te King, who came into this world at 12:32 a.m., at Jackson South Community Hospital, in Southwest Miami-Dade.
“She took me through a lot of pain, but thank God she’s here,” said the baby girl’s mother, Standricka Wooden.
Then there was Marius Pruitt, who was born six minutes before Nishon’te at Memorial Regional Hospital. “At first, I thought we were going to have him on Christmas and everything,” said his mother, Jasmine Aldiva. “I was having contractions, but they sent me home.”
When a Christmas birth wasn’t in the cards, Marius made another holiday his own.
“I wasn’t like that many centimeters, and out of nowhere, in like an hour, I was 9 centimeters, and he was ready to come out,” said Aldiva.
Meanwhile, Wooden thought she was just stopping at Jackson South for a checkup, but her 5-pound, 14-ounce daughter had other plans. “I didn’t know that they were going to keep me. I went into active labor, actually, at 12 o’clock a.m.,” she said.
Nishon’te’s arrival, however, made the unexpected ordeal well worth enduring. “It’s the best thing in the world, knowing that she’s here, healthy and strong,” said Nishon King, the baby’s father.
Wooden’s doctor, Jamell Walker, had nothing but praise for the mother who managed to push just once to deliver her youngest. “It’s something we do every day,” she said. “We make miracles daily, but this one is a particular happiness and joy for me because she’s my first New Year’s baby.”
Both babies have big brothers to meet at the hospital. Marius has three other siblings at home.
Aldiva and Wooden said a baby at the start of the new year is an incredible blessing.
When asked whether she has any New Year’s resolutions, Aldiva replied, “Just for my kids to be safe and healthy.”
“She’s a New Year’s baby, and she’s one of my New Year’s resolutions,” said Wooden.
The one thing neither newborn can claim, however, is being the very first 2017 baby born at a South Florida hospital. Northwest Medical Center in Margate reported a baby was born there at 12:02 a.m.
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