Allison Dunn and her cheering coterie were whooping it up, celebrating in the delivery room of Salt Lake Regional Medical Center because no one, surely, could beat her for the first baby of the year 2000.
Time of birth: 00.00.01 -- one second after midnight.The nurses and family in the delivery room were switching back and forth from watching Allison, 26, make her final effort to get the baby out and watching the ball drop on television, counting down the seconds . . . "five, four, three, two, one," pandemonium . . . and young Cameron Dunn made his appearance into the world.
Husband Patrick, who because of the passage of one second couldn't claim his second child as a 1999 income tax deduction, was excited anyway thinking about the year's supply of Pampers or scholarships or whatever the first baby of the millennium might get.
But wait. This is not your typical warm-and-fuzzy, we're-so-happy, joy, joy, first-baby-of-the-year story. The much-feared Y2K problem may have been a bust, but when it comes to babies, the new millennium began with a bang -- a genuine, full-fledged, out-and-out controversy.
For when area hospitals started calling each other shortly after midnight to compare times, Cameron wasn't the only baby who had practically assured his parents of the title.
Turns out that Brinlee Millenia Shepard (can't guess where she got her middle name? -- go to the back of the class) was born at Cottonwood Hospital at, yes, one second after midnight.
"I've been doing this 20 years, and I've never seen one this close," said Salt Lake Regional maternity nurse Nemia German.
You might conclude it was a tie -- but not so fast. For when the folks at Cottonwood Hospital found out about Cameron, the official time of Brinlee's birth was changed to one-half second after midnight, making her the winner.
Cheating? Well, perhaps. Here's what happened:
Brinlee's mother, Natalie Shepard, 27, had been in the hospital with husband Rick since 6:30 a.m. As the hours ticked by, everyone started to think, "Hey, we could be the first baby of the millennium and get the cool prizes, not to mention bragging rights."
Sure enough, Shepard was able to hold off until a few seconds before midnight when she finally pushed out Brinlee's head and shoulders -- but not her whole body.
There was a computer monitor next to the bed with a digital clock that nurse Sue Morley was keeping an eagle eye on, counting down the final seconds out loud.
Dr. Stephen Terry, who was doing the delivery, pulled out all of Brinlee except her feet. He momentarily paused until Morley counted zero, pulled Brinlee out the rest of the way, looked up, and saw the clock (which runs on a 24-hour cycle) turn from 00.00.00 to 00.00.01.
"If I had looked up and seen a zero-one I would certainly not have made it a half-second," Terry said. "But as it was, it was clear she was born before" a second had elapsed.
Cameron's official birth date and time: 1/1/00 00.00.01. Brinlee's: 1/1/00 00.00.005.
Was Cottonwood Hospital's time change valid? Well, you make the call. There really isn't a certified referee for this sort of thing.
According to the official time of birth, Brinlee is the winner. But realistically, given the inevitable variations in clock synchronization, human error and the fact that Cameron's nurses and doctor were working off TV and an analog clock rather than a digital clock, no one will ever know which child was actually born first.
There's something else, too: the fact that Cameron just came out, whereas Brinlee was, however briefly, artificially restrained.
"We didn't do that," said Cameron's grandmother, Linda Hincy, proudly. "He just flipped right out."
Our recommendation: The next time a new millennium rolls around, borrow a few synchronized game clocks from the Delta Center, the ones that show 10ths of seconds, and install them in all area hospitals. That ought to do it.
"Dunn is working; he's faking, now he goes for it -- but wait! Holding call on Shepard! But she breaks through anyway and overtakes Dunn by a whisker! What a play!"
"There may have been a little home cooking on that timer, Hot Rod -- we'll have to watch the replay to make sure."
In any case, there apparently isn't a whole lot at stake anyway. Huge first-baby-of-the-year prizes are largely passe now, even for the first baby of the millennium, and it appears both Cameron and Brinlee, while getting a nice bunch of booty from their respective hospitals, won't get much beyond that.
No big deal, said Natalie Shepard. "We just wanted her healthy, and she is."
Ironically, a baby completely out of the running might wind up with more than the contenders. The Salt Lake City-County Health Department gave a gift package worth almost $900 to the last baby born in Salt Lake County in 1999: Landon James Brown, born to Mie-Kyong Brown at St. Mark's Hospital at 10:44 p.m.
"It worked out really great because the father lost his job, and they didn't have a working car seat, and they really needed this," said department spokeswoman Jana Carlson-Kettering. "It wasn't just excess."
The year 2000 brought one other baby surprise. In Ogden, 21-year-old Crystal Galligan was the first to give birth (1:42 a.m.) at Ogden Regional Medical Center -- a girl, Takara.
OK, fine, so what? -- Consider this: Galligan was the first to give birth at Ogden Regional last year, too.