Aera Beatrice Cooper is Medicine Hat's first baby born in 2022. - SUBMITTED PHOTO
cgallant@medicinehatnews.com@CollinGallant
Despite it all, Corbin and Amy Cooper say it was a “no brainer” to get married in late 2020 and start a family in 2021.
Now, the Medicine Hat couple welcomed their first child as the New Year’s baby in 2022.
Aera Beatrice Cooper was born at 1:49 p.m. on January 1, weighing eight pounds six ounces and measuring 19 and three-quarter inches, at Medicine Hat Regional Hospital.
That’s 14 hours after her mother went into labour at 10 minutes to midnight on New Year’s Eve, but parents Amy and Corbin told the News that after an uneventful pregnancy it feels like life changed “at lightning speed.”
They also chose not to be told the gender of the child, and called it a wonderful surprise and worth the wait.
That’s after consciously deciding to begin their family rather than waiting for calmer times or the pandemic to subside.
Amy is a nurse, which led to familiar faces in the maternity ward, while Corbin a chemical engineer in the city.
Aera, pronounced “air-ah”, is the couple’s first child, and arrives about 15 months after the long-time couple was married in Oct. 2020.
“We’d known each other for years before, and even though it was in the thick of things, it was a no brainer that we wanted to get married and have a family,” said Corbin.
“Now a little more than a year later we had a smooth pregnancy and a wonderful baby.”
This year, Alberta Health Services announced they would not arrange media interviews with parents of the New Year’s babies at any sites across the province. This led to a call by the News for parents of a Jan. 1 birthday to contact a reporter, and several calls from proud parents and grandparents.
It created some minor confusion and good-spirited competition among those who contacted the News.
Medicine Hat may also be able to lay some claim to the New Year’s baby born in Calgary, according to sources and an unconfirmed report of a local couple going to the major centre for medical care.
As for the first baby boy born in Medicine Hat in 2022, it is, in fact, “a real baby,” the infant’s proud father reported to the News.
First-time dad Brody Bourlon, became a father later on New Year’s Day, said that he’s still in a state of joyful wonderment.
“When it happened… it’s just, holy crow! – there’s a real baby right here” said Bourlon, whose son Samuel Blair Bourlon weighed seven pounds, 4.8 ounces and measured 19 inches.
“It really just makes you think about some pretty big questions, eternal questions.”
He arrived at about 9:30 p.m. on Jan. 1, happy and healthy, as is new mother Chantel Akerstrom.
Her contractions began the afternoon on New Year’s Eve, but the couple were sent home from the hospital until labour progressed further, which is a common practice.
They returned at about dinner time on New Year’s Day. Three hours later, their son was born.
“He’s a little fuzzball with a lot of hair,” said Bourlon. “He’s got more than his grandpa.”
In a typical year, about 1,200 babies are delivered locally.
Alberta reported a record number of births across the province in 2015 with 56,642. That fell to 48,809 in 2020, representing about 3,000 fewer than 2019.
Figures for the most recent year are expected in July.
