{"id":90935,"date":"2020-01-03T18:14:26","date_gmt":"2020-01-03T18:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/three-regional-hospitals-welcome-in-first-babies-of-2020\/"},"modified":"2020-01-03T18:14:26","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T18:14:26","slug":"three-regional-hospitals-welcome-in-first-babies-of-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/three-regional-hospitals-welcome-in-first-babies-of-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Three regional hospitals welcome in first babies of 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Nicole
Nicole and Zach Belnap hold their son, Maxwell Bruce Belnap, Thursday at Mercy Regional Medical Center. Maxwell was the first baby born in 2020 at Mercy Regional Medical Center.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Three regional hospitals \u2013 Mercy Regional Medical Center in Durango, Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez and San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington \u2013 welcomed in the first-born babies of the new year.<\/p>\n

Meet Maxwell Bruce Belnap, the first born in 2020 at Mercy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t thinking we\u2019d have the first baby,\u201d said Maxwell\u2019s mother, Nicole. \u201cBut it\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nicole
Nicole and Zach Belnap hold their son, Maxwell Bruce Belnap, Thursday at Mercy Regional Medical Center. Maxwell is the couple\u2019s first child, and the first of the decade at Mercy.<\/span>Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Nicole and her husband, Zach, said doctors set a due date of Dec. 31, so the couple knew it was going to be close whether Maxwell would be the first baby born at Mercy in the new year.<\/p>\n

Nicole began contractions about 5:30 a.m. on New Year\u2019s Day, and the couple went to Mercy about 11 a.m.<\/p>\n

Maxwell was born at 9:45 p.m. Wednesday. He was delivered by Dr. Megan Palmer with Four Corners OB-GYN. He is the couple\u2019s first child.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was pretty smooth,\u201d Nicole said.<\/p>\n

Nicole works in graphic design, and Zach is a pilot for Flight for Life. The couple, who live in Bayfield, moved to the area about 4\u00bd years ago.<\/p>\n

As for having the first baby not only of the year, but of the new decade, Zach said, \u201cI was hoping for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Zhjade
Zhjade Perales of Cortez holds her son, Sayler, the first baby born in 2020 at Southwest Memorial Hospital.<\/span>Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Zhjade
Zhjade Perales of Cortez holds her son, Sayler Perales, as grandmother Sherry Lansing looks on. Sayler was the first baby born in 2020 at Southwest Memorial Hospital.<\/span>Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sayler Roy Perales was the first baby born in 2020 at Southwest Memorial Hospital in Cortez.<\/p>\n

\"Parents
Parents Perfinna Largo and Mark Warner embrace their daughter, Joy Warner, who was the first baby of the new year born at San Juan Regional Medical Center at 5:30 a.m. Jan. 1, 2020.<\/span>Courtesy of San Juan Regional Medical Center<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cIt all went very fast,\u201d said Zhjade, 26. \u201cMy mom drove me here around 2 a.m., and he was born a little while later. It\u2019s a big surprise, kinda surreal, that he\u2019s the first baby of the year. I did not expect that. It\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

The healthy boy weighed in at 7 pounds, 12 ounces, and was not originally due until 12 days later, but he decided to arrive a few days after his mother\u2019s birthday.<\/p>\n

On New Year\u2019s Eve, she was watching the ball drop in Times Square on television with her parents, then had a restless night and was pacing about. Her mother, Sherry Lansing, noticed, and they decided to drive to the hospital to be on the safe side.<\/p>\n

A quick delivery followed \u2013 a preferred natural birth with no pain medication, and there were no complications.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s tough, we\u2019re so proud,\u201d Lansing said. \u201cI got to cut the umbilical cord.\u201d<\/p>\n

The joke in the family is that a spicy meal of enchiladas on New Year\u2019s Eve triggered the early birth of Sayler.<\/p>\n

A Farmington family rang in the new decade with a little joy of their own.<\/p>\n

Joy Warner was the first baby of the new year born at San Juan Regional Medical Center. Entering the world at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday, beating out two other babies born later on New Year\u2019s Day, according to the hospital.<\/p>\n

Parents Perfinna Largo, 20, and Mark Warner, 21, welcomed their baby daughter, who weighed 9 pounds, 6 ounces.<\/p>\n

The hospital also announced there were 506 boys and 525 girls born at the childbirth center in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bayfield, Cortez and Farmington families give birth Jan. 1<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-90935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90935"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=90935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}