The only way to guarantee having the first baby of the year 2000 is to hire a hospital boat and have a scheduled C-section in the middle of the South Pacific on the International Date Line.
Otherwise, you'll have to leave things to Mother Nature, according to Dr. Steven L. Clark, perinatologist at LDS Hospital."I'd give up on it," Clark said of what might be called the Y2Kid Classic. "Only 5 percent of women deliver on their due date, even when it's absolutely known by in vitro fertilization techniques when the baby was conceived. And anyone who tries is going to, by a 95 percent likelihood, miss it by at least 24 hours.
"I can predict who will have that baby. It will be someone whose due date was not Jan. 1, 2000."
That hasn't slowed down the latest form of Millennial Madness. And no one seems to care that the millennium technically starts Jan. 1, 2001, because there was no Year Zero.
People are calculating the ideal time to conceive in order to welcome in the first baby Jan. 1,2000. But they don't even agree on that. Some put the likeliest date at March 29. Others say it is April 9. Everyone agrees, though, that the lucky baby will be conceived sometime between March 27 and April 10.
Probably.
And if the International Date Line delivery sounds far-fetched, don't laugh. A San Diego couple has already made arrangements to deliver on an island on the date line. Barring, of course, complications.
Captain Cook's Hotel, the only hotel on Kiribatit's Christmas Island, which is on the International Date Line, has already sold out its 36 rooms for New Year's. But the general manager said they'll build more rooms, if they need to. (Because commercial airlines generally don't like women to fly after they're eight months pregnant, better book a room for November and December.)
Will there be a baby boomlet around Jan. 1? No one's sure. But interest in it has sparked Web sites dedicated to "helpful tips," including a Millennium Conception Kit www.babycenter.com, a chat room and unbelievable media hype, fueled by a number of contests to provide prizes to the lucky first baby of the coming year.
Jess Gomez, spokesman for LDS Hospital, said he heard staffers discussing the best date to conceive. They settled on April 8 through 10.
A British TV company, Yorkshire Television, has been running "Birth Race 2000," a multi-part documentary on couples trying for millennial babies.
A Canadian company has copyrighted the name "Official Millennial Baby" and "Baby 2000" and promises to gather up to $2 million worth of prizes for the first ty2ke born in North America in 2000.
Radio shows in several locations are springing for "romantic evenings" for selected couples who'd like to conceive the tY2Ke, complete with candlelight dinners and luxury hotel suites.
A spokeswoman for the Patent and Trademark Office told the Washington Post that not since Desert Storm has her office seen such clamoring for a trademark. They've gotten more than 1,300 applications for trademarks with the word "millennium" in them, including some celebrating the baby-to-be.
Not everyone's enamored with the idea. With fears that Y2K computer problems will create chaos, lots of people don't want to be anywhere near a hospital when the clock turns over. But University Hospital's Dr. Pierre Pincetl says fears of chaos in most hospitals are overblown. They'll be ready.
There's always the question of names. Y2Kiera? Y2Kelly? Internet chatroom visitors say they're opting for Millicent, Millie, even Otto (for aught).
Hopefully, Clark said, women thinking of trying for a New Year's baby have made sure they have no treatable medical problem that could be dealt with before conception. And they should all have been taking at least .04 milligrams of folic acid for a couple of months to prevent some serious birth defects.