While many were ringing in the new year with champagne toasts, Twin Cities hospitals were bustling with the arrival of 2024's first bundles of joy. One local family had a particularly swift and surprising start to their year, as North Memorial Health Hospital in Maple Grove celebrated the birth of a baby boy merely twenty minutes past the confetti-filled hour, according to reports from KARE 11.
The parents, Dao Her and Thao Xiong arrived at the hospital around 11:30 p.m., and before they could barely settle in, their son Cyrus made a hasty entrance into the world at 12:20 a.m., tipping the scales at 7 pounds and 6 ounces. "We got to the hospital around 11:30 and with all the paperwork and we went to the room and it just took around like 20 minutes for the baby to come out," Her, a new mother of five, told KARE 11 in an interview. Though quick labor wasn't new for Her, the novelty of having the first metro baby of 2024 was unexpected. "I was like, 'Oh yeah, maybe he might be born January 1st,' but I didn't expect him to be the first one!" she added.
As the night progressed, more families welcomed new additions. Hennepin Healthcare saw its first birth at 3:42 a.m. with the arrival of a baby named Leslie, proudly introduced by parents Ingrid and Walter. Over at M Health Fairview Ridges Hospital in Burnsville, at 1:08 a.m., baby Sabine joined the world as fireworks lit up the sky — a fitting backdrop for a child born 5.5 weeks early and now under the attentive care of the neonatal intensive care unit as reported by CBS News Minnesota.
Not to be outdone, M Health Fairview St. John's Hospital in Maplewood also celebrated an early arrival, as young Isabella Hirsch made her debut at 1:38 a.m., a so-called “bit of a talker." "She came out crying for a few hours; I guess she likes to make her opinions heard," her father, Nicholas Hirsch, quipped according to CBS News Minnesota. These four births, each unique and full of hope, heralded the new year for the Twin Cities, symbolizing fresh starts and new beginnings for the families involved.
