ARLINGTON — Joel and Angelina Garcia have a knack for timing special moments around fireworks and major celebrations.
Their first son, Josue, was born July 5, 1993, the day after the Marysville couple witnessed a large fireworks display.
The Garcias missed the fireworks early Saturday morning but still had plenty to celebrate as the region marked the dawning of the year 2000.
Thirty-eight minutes past midnight, Angelina gave birth to a 19-inch, 7-pound, 3-ounce boy at Cascade Valley Hospital in Arlington. Daniel Garcia was the first Y2K baby born in a Snohomish County hospital.
“He is going to be a good boy,” Joel Garcia said, cradling his slumbering second son in the crook of his arm. “I know that. I know that for sure.”
“He is happy to have a baby,” Joel Garcia said, nodding toward Josue. “He will be a big brother now.”
The Garcias didn’t set out to have a Jan. 1 Y2Kid. Daniel wasn’t expected for another week, but it became clear to the couple late Friday evening that the time had come.
“It wasn’t in our plans to have a millennium baby,” Angelina Garcia said.
Other couples tried to do just that.
News reports last spring chronicled couples around the nation and the world who tried for a New Year’s Day baby. They attempted to conceive on April 9, the date many believed provided their greatest odds.
The timing – New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day – was hardly on Angelina Garcia’s mind when she was in labor, squeezing a masking tape roll hard enough to break its inner roll during one contraction.
She just wanted her baby and for the pain to subside.
Neither parent was predicting a future profession for their newest child Saturday.
“The first thing is school,” Angelina Garcia said, stressing the importance of an education.
While Daniel was the first baby born at a Snohomish County hospital in 2000, the distinction of being the first firstborn of a county resident in 2000 goes to Konnor Anton Kautzman. Konnor, an 8-pound boy, was born at Evergreen Hospital Medical Center in Kirkland to Kasper and Holly of Silver Lake, according to hospital officials. The couple’s first baby was born at 12:21 a.m. Saturday.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446; stevick@heraldnet.com.
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