A Queens couple got a 7-pound surprise to help them ring in 2017!
Carmen Peralta, 39, wasn’t expecting her bundle of joy to arrive for another two weeks — but she welcomed the city’s first baby of the year less than 10 minutes into 2017.
“I am very excited. This is my blessing,” she said Sunday morning from her room at Flushing Hospital.
Her unexpected arrival showed up at 12:08 a.m., weighing 7 pounds and 11.5 ounces and measuring 19.5 inches long.
“We didn’t expect this. He is early,” said proud papa Luis Duque, of Corona, grinning from ear to ear.
They named the healthy baby Nathan, which Duque said they chose because it means gift of God.
“And this is a gift of God for us in the new year,” he added.
Peralta plans to be at stay-at-home to care for Nathan, her first child.
Just one minute after he arrived, a baby girl named Melanie was born at NYC Health + Hospitals, the city’s public hospital system. She weighed 6 pounds, 9 ounces at Jacobi Medical Center in the Bronx.
Last year, two baby boys born exactly at the stroke of midnight, one in Brooklyn and one in Queens, battled it out for the title of first baby of 2016.
Zayden Noel Staley arrived as the ball was dropping at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn. Another baby boy was born at Northwell Health’s Long Island Jewish Medical Center at the same time.