First baby of 2014 — better late than never

Shehekea Tait hoped she’d deliver her fourth child on the first day of 2014.

“I was trying all week to get him here,” she said. “I wanted that new year’s baby.”

As midnight arrived to end Jan. 1, Tait’s chances of delivering Carson City’s first baby of the year vanished. Or so she thought.

When she went into labor Thursday night, she learned no babies had yet been born in 2014.

At 3:04 a.m. Friday, Aiden Tait — weighing 6 pounds, 13 ounces and measuring 18.5 inches — became the first baby born at Carson Tahoe hospital this year.

And just in the nick of time.

“I think the babies were racing, too,” Tait said. “He came out, then an hour later, we heard the other baby crying.”

Aiden is Tait’s fourth child, joining two brothers, 4 and 1, and one sister, 2.

“He’s just as good as the other three were,” she said. “He’s really quiet, but he does have a voice on him. When he decides to scream, he screams.”

As the first baby, Aiden received a $50 Butler Meats gift card from the Nevada Cattlewomen’s Association along with a basket full of items from the hospital.

As the state’s first hospital to gain international recognition as a Baby-Friendly birth facility, the bulk of the gifts to the new mother are designed to promote breastfeeding. The designation is awarded for adhering to breastfeeding standards sponsored by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

As part of the standards, babies are placed directly on the mother’s chest after delivery. That was a new experience for Tait.

“It was cool,” she said.

While it is done for several reasons, one of them is to encourage breastfeeding. And it seemed to have worked.

“He’s the first one of mine to breastfeed,” Tait said. “He just went right to business. He knew what he wanted.”

As she stroked her new baby’s head, full of dark hair, she mused, “He’s perfect — except he needs to wake up and eat.”