(WTVM) -
Instead of counting down until midnight on New Year's Eve, some local parents were counting down until they would get to hold their new babies.
Martha Linero-Ariza and her husband Anvar Saadat did not think they would be holding a new baby girl named Salome on New Year's Day.
Both Linero-Ariza and Saadat are majors in the Colombian Army and are instructors at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation on Fort Benning. A translator explained how blessed the mother felt to finally hold her second daughter.
"To open the new year with the biggest blessing a woman can have is to be a mother," said Linero-Ariza.
At 12:24 a.m., the 7 pound, 6 ounce baby was born at Martin Army Community Hospital making her the first in the Chattahoochee Valley in 2013. Her father is set to report back to Colombia in a couple of days and was worried he would miss his daughter's arrival, but she came.
"Blessed by God and extremely happy," said the mother.
Several hours later, at the Columbus Medical Center, first time mom, Veronica Dean gave birth to a baby boy, Jaicen Rainey, just after 7:00 a.m. He was the first baby born in Columbus in 2013.
"I didn't expect it. A lot of my friends joked with me and said that he was going to be born today, but I didn't think so because I wasn't due until the tenth," said Dean.
Dean says it did not matter what day he was born, the most amazing thing was becoming a mother.
"I can't even describe it. I have godchildren and I have my nephew which when he was born I took him basically as my own son, but you know just having my own is just really so much more than all of that," said Dean.
The Phoebe Sumter Medical Center also welcomed a New Year's baby. Cameron Isaiah Gordon was born at 12:04 p.m. on Tuesday. He is the son of KaNundria Wilbon and Brandon Gordon of Americus.
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