GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A baby boy in Grand Rapids was born with a singular claim to fame: Hospital officials say he’s the city’s first baby of 2018.
Leyton James Reed was born early New Year’s Day. He weighed 6 pounds, 12 ounces and was 19.5 inches long.
“I really wasn’t actually expecting it to be the first one in Grand Rapids,” his mother Erica Thrasher said.
Thrasher was scheduled to be induced around 5 a.m. New Year’s Eve. Her baby had 19 hours to be born in 2017. He had other plans.
“I was pushing him out and watching fireworks,” Thrasher said. “There were fireworks in my window.”
Midnight came and went, and the race was on to see who would be the first to be born in Grand Rapids in 2018. It came down to Thrasher and another mom who was delivering twins. Baby Leyton knew what to do.
“Once the contractions came and all that, it was bam, bam, bam,” Thrasher recalled.
More than 21 hours after Thrasher was induced, Leyton was born at 1:10 a.m. New Year’s Day. The twins were delivered five minutes later.
Spectrum Health says Leyton was the first baby born in Grand Rapids in 2018. Thrasher said hospital officials were on the phone with other hospitals as it was happening, checking to see if another baby had come first.
Mom and dad are excited Leyton waited for the new year to be born.
“Everyone was surprised though that we didn’t want to do it for the tax credit,” Thrasher said. “And I was like, ‘I don’t care. I just want to try and have him on New Year’s.’”
The family was resting comfortably in the hospital Monday. Mom and baby were expected to go home Wednesday.