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Babies of the New Year
The wait took a couple of days, but a Mountain Home couple not only welcomed their first child but also became the first family in Elmore County to usher in 2011 with a baby.
Kaleb Michael Gehrt, the son of Jason and Crystal Gehrt, arrived at 12:47 p.m. Jan. 3.
Born at the hospital at Mountain Home Air Force Base, he weighed in at 7 pounds, 11 ounces and measured 22 inches in length.
Although her water broke around 12:30 a.m. that morning, Crystal didn't go into active labor for another 11 hours. But once it started, it only took about 90 minutes for their son's birth.
"It happened so fast," Crystal said.
"It was real quick," Jason added as he cradled his sleeping son at the family's home in Mountain Home.
Despite an original due date of Jan. 12, Crystal suspected that Kaleb would arrive soon than expected.
"I just knew I wouldn't make it to the 12th," she said. Expecting her son to arrive on Jan. 2, she spent the day scrubbing the house -- what she called "hardcore nesting" -- to get things ready for his arrival.
"I was actually expecting another week to prepare," said Jason, a technical sergeant assigned to the 366th Maintenance Operations Squadron at the nearby base.
However, the notion that their son would actually become the first baby of the new year didn't really cross their minds.
"When Jan. 1 came and went, I wondered who was the one that had the first baby of the year," Crystal said. As she recovered, a member of the medical staff at the base hospital stopped by her room and announced that they were the first.
"I was just amazed and proud," she said.
Maj. (Dr.) Edgar LeClair from the hospital at from Mountain Home Air Force Base helped deliver the child with no complications during or after the birth.
"I just cried after he was born," Crystal said. "He was absolutely perfect -- a perfect little baby."
"I was totally blown away and ecstatic that everything was fine and he was healthy, which was my biggest concern," Jason said. "He's giving me less and less sleep every day, but I can't wait until he gets a little bigger" so they can do things together, he added.
The Gehrt's remained the only family in the county to deliver a baby until Jan. 5 when Michelle and Manuel D. Gonzales III welcomed their son Jan. 5 at Elmore Medical Center.
Manuel Donald Gonzales IV arrived at 8:56 p.m. and weighed in at just over 6 pounds at birth. He's the first child for the Gonzales family.
The family lives in Owyhee, Nev., on the Duck Valley Reservation where Michelle serves as a doctor.
To mark the occasion of Manuel's birth, Elmore Medical Center presented its first New Year's family with a basket stocked with an assortment of gifts for their son.
The basket included several clothing items, baby socks, receiving blanket, rattle and stuffed monkey along with disposable diapers and other baby products.