‘Love and happiness’: Families start new year with newborns
Andrea and Matthew Hodge greeted another year where they rang in 2021: the hospital maternity wing.
Their first daughter, Esther, now 3, was born on New Year’s Eve. The Batavia couple was due to welcome their third child on Jan. 1. Sure enough, the newest member of the Hodge family will celebrate back-to-back birthdays with her big sister.
“We have a New Year’s Eve baby and now a New Year’s Day baby,” Andrea Hodge said with her husband by her side at Northwestern Medicine Delnor Hospital in Geneva.
Pearl Noelle Hodge, a 7.5-pound bundle of cuteness, came into the world at 5:28 a.m., making her one of the first babies of 2024 and leaving her parents filled with “immense pride.”
“It's amazing how your heart can grow,” her mom said. “You think after other kids ... how can I love another child any more? And then you hold that little baby and look at ‘em, and it just fills you with warmth and love and happiness and just thankfulness to God for these blessings that He's given my family.”
A new life arriving in a new year makes for a sweet family story, but here’s the incredible part: Andrea’s dad, Dr. Peter Cladis, delivered babies at Delnor Hospital for 30 years. Just before she got married, Andrea discovered her father had already, sort of, met her husband-to-be.
“When we were putting together a little slideshow of pictures to show at our wedding reception, his parents gave me some newborn photos of him. And there was a photo of Matthew as a baby, and you didn’t see the doctor’s face,” she said. “You just saw the doctor’s hands.”
Andrea recognized something familiar in the way the doctor had picked up the newborn with a distinctive, firm grasp.
“After seeing lots of pictures of my dad holding babies as a child — every time I’d go to his office, they had a little board of all the babies their practice delivered — I was like, ‘those are my dad’s hands, and I feel like I’m missing something here,’” she recalled.
After further inquiry, Andrea learned her dad, who has practiced medicine through Fox Valley Family Physicians, was the on-call doctor the night her husband was born. Amazingly, “he delivered my husband,” she said.
“I was kind of floored by that,” she said.
Though she arrived on her due date, Pearl was still a surprise to her parents. They didn’t know if they were having a boy or a girl.
“We feel very, very grateful and just happy and glad that she's safe, safe in this world now,” said Andrea Hodge, also mom to 19-month-old Sophia.
Pearl is named in honor of her dad’s grandmother. Her parents want her to grow up strong and confident, to follow her dreams and know this: “that we’ll be her biggest fans and cheerleaders.”
Other suburban hospitals were busy delivering New Year’s babies and future members of the high school Class of 2042.
At 12:32 a.m., Naperville parents Elizabeth Madsen, 30, and Ken Madsen, 31, welcomed Kennedi James Madsen, an 8-pound, 1-ounce baby girl at Endeavor Health Edward Hospital in Naperville.
Daniela Smahon, 34, and Andrei Smahon, 40, started the new year with twins: a baby girl born 5 pounds, 2 ounces at 12:46 a.m. and a baby boy born 5 pounds, 5 ounces at 12:59 a.m. at Endeavor Health Elmhurst Hospital. The Elmhurst parents have not yet picked out their names.
At Endeavor Health Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, Maren and Alexander Heldt had a baby boy at 1:53 a.m. The Hainesville parents have not chosen his name.
Emily and Wes Ortman, of Wheeling, had their first child, Ocean, at 3:18 a.m. -- the first baby born at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. Ocean checked in at 5 pounds, 2.4 ounces.
Tessa and Christian Smith also welcomed their first child, Cole, at 10:12 a.m. Monday at Advocate Sherman Hospital in Elgin. Cole weighed 6 pounds, 5.6 ounces.