Farmington natives Meghan Bitterauf and Levi Daku were expecting the arrival of their first child on Christmas Eve. But when Bitterauf went into labor around 10:30 a.m. on Dec. 31, a week late, the couple knew their son’s arrival still would come on a special date – the last day of the year or the first day of a new one.

At 12:46 a.m. on New Year’s Day, Bitterauf gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Isiah Norman Daku, at Franklin Memorial Hospital. He was believed to be the first baby born in central Maine in 2016, and possibly the entire state.

After a week of patience and anxiety awaiting the birth, Daku said in a phone interview Friday that he could describe Isiah’s arrival in one word: “awesome.”

The proud father called his firstborn, at 21½ inches long and weighing 9 pounds, 12.7 ounces, “a big boy.”

At MaineGeneral Medical Center in Augusta, a spokesperson said that hospital’s first baby of the year was born at 3:48 a.m. to Keltie and Adrian Beaudoin of Winthrop. Wesley Cooper Beaudoin weighed 8 pounds and was 21½ inches long. He joined older sister Samantha, who is 16 months.

“He’s been good all day. He’s not crying at all,” Adrian Beaudoin said Friday by phone from the couple’s room at the hospital, where they were visited by family members and grandparents.

Beaudoin said every New Year’s Day will be different from now on.

“Every party, every New Year’s, will no longer be about the beginning of the new year. It’s going to be about a birthday party for this guy,” he said of his son. “Next year, he’ll probably be up and running around.”

As of midafternoon Friday, staffers at Inland Hospital in Waterville and Redington-Fairview General Hospital in Skowhegan reported no births and they weren’t expecting any to occur soon.

At Maine Medical Center in Portland, a spokeswoman refused to say Friday night whether any babies were born there Jan. 1.

Bitterauf, 34, and Daku, 36, met when they were both growing up in the Mount Blue school district. They never dated and went to different colleges, then reconnected after they both moved back to Farmington. The couple is engaged to be married and happy to be planting their family roots in Farmington.

As the parents of the first baby of the year at Franklin Memorial, Bitterauf and Daku will receive a “Cozy Coupe,” which includes books and baby gifts from local merchants, gift cards and a $25 deposit account certificate from Bangor Savings Bank.

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