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Baby new year...
He wasn't due to arrive for another two weeks, but Amar Shahin Saravanan apparently had other plans. Just 38 minutes after midnight on Sunday, the youngster was welcomed into the world, becoming the first baby born in Elmore County in the new year.
The son of Ananth and Nasreena Saravanan tipped the scales at 6.17 pounds and measured 20 inches at birth.
The Saravanans, who are stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base with the Republic of Singapore air force training squadron, moved to Idaho nearly a year ago.
They had just celebrated their second wedding anniversary last June.
The couple admitted that their son's unscheduled arrival caught them off guard.
"He was supposed to be here Jan. 14," Ananth said.
The couple were sleeping at home Saturday morning when Nasreena noticed that she was leaking fluid, which seemed out of place.
"I was confused. I was not sure if that was normal," she said.
At the urging of her friends, she made a call to the labor and delivery ward at the base hospital, who asked her to stop by so they could check.
She didn't expect that she would end up having her child just hours later.
"They told me it was going to be a long day," she said.
But the delivery of the family's first child wasn't without its challenges. Nasreena spent 20 hours in labor before her doctors opted to deliver the child via caesarean section.
The procedure was actually something Nasreena wanted once active labor started.
"I was just too tired of pushing," she said. "I thought why not get the baby out as soon as possible."
Despite the lengthy delivery, there were no additional complications with their child receiving a clean bill of health, Ananth said.
Coming from a country where a child is born once every minute on average, the couple never expected that they would make a little history by becoming the first parents of the new year in Elmore County.
"I thought there was no way we would be the first," Ananth said. "It never crossed my mind. It was quite a shocker."
"I was surprised when the nurse told us," Nasreena added. "It was already four days past New Year's Day."
But the couple's taking everything in stride.
"My son's a celebrity now," Nasreena said.
The couple expects to remain at Mountain Home Air Force Base for the next 18 months before they return to their home in Singapore.
As of press time Tuesday, St. Luke's Elmore medical center in Mountain Home had not delivered a child in the new year with the first one not due until Jan. 15.