New Year’s arrival

Published 12:01 am Sunday, January 2, 2011

EVERETT — Heather and Jacob Robbins thought they were having a Christmas baby.

But Christmas came and went, and that baby just didn’t want to arrive.

Finally, just minutes into the new year, the Lake Stevens couple welcomed their daughter into the world.

Hudson Elizabeth Robbins was the first baby born in a Snohomish County hospital in 2011. She arrived at 12:36 a.m. at Providence Regional Medical Center Everett’s Pavilion for Women and Children.

The next Jan. 1 baby in the county wasn’t delivered until after 7 a.m. at Stevens Hospital at Edmonds.

Hudson weighed 7 pounds, 10 ounces. She came with a whiff of soft chestnut hair.

“I thought she was beautiful,” the new mother said from her hospital bed Saturday afternoon.

Robbins said she couldn’t have delivered the baby without the help of a “Saint of a nurse” named Sarah.

Heather Robbins arrived at the hospital Friday and labored into the night. By the evening, the parents-to-be knew their daughter could be a New Year’s baby.

They were too busy to dwell on it.

Once the baby arrived, dad stretched out on a hospital room sofa for some rest. He was still there Saturday afternoon.

“He’s zonked,” Heather Robbins said.

The new mom found that she couldn’t sleep much.

“I couldn’t stop looking at her, and I’ve been up ever since,” she said.

Saturday afternoon the new mother cuddled the infant. The baby stared back at her mother, equally intrigued, her blue eyes taking in her mother’s face and her tiny pink baby tongue zipping in and out playfully.

Hudson made soft breathy noises and pushed a tightly balled fist up under her chin.

The baby squeezed her shut eyes and sneezed.

“Oh, bless you!” the new mother said. “Oh, goodness!”

The nursing staff at Providence gave the couple a basketful of goodies, including a piggy bank, diapers, clothes and chocolates.

The baby’s grandmother, Janice Sellers, said this: “I’m over the moon. She’s great, beautiful, perfect. I’m proud of Heather.”

Debra Smith: 425-339-3197; dsmith@heraldnet.com.