Fifth Child Comes First Post Falls Couple Welcome Son Just After Midnight

Dave and Theresa Strawn didn’t get to throw that New Year’s Eve party they planned.

The Post Falls couple, both 29, never got a glimpse of those fireworks they bought for the occasion. Instead, the Strawns rang in the new era with the first baby born in 2000 in North Idaho.

Stephen Michael Strawn held off just long enough to make history - until 12:01 a.m.

“We missed all the fireworks, but it was worth it. We got a beautiful baby son,” said Dave Strawn.

The proud parents fielded a flurry of media visits Saturday morning in their Kootenai Medical Center room and cooed at their new son, their fifth child.

Unlike many parents who timed babies’ arrivals to coincide with the new year, the Strawns didn’t plan a millennium kid.

“He was supposed to be a Christmas baby,” said Theresa Strawn.

But her husband said he not only knew better - he bragged about it. “I’ve been going around telling everybody 12:01,” said Dave Strawn, a construction worker and Post Falls volunteer firefighter. “He made me look good for about five minutes. I would have really heard about it. The guys can be relentless at the department.”

Dave’s birthday was about nine months ago.

“Turned out to be a really good birthday and a really nice end of the year, too,” he said. Just because a baby is making history doesn’t make for a legendary delivery.

Theresa Strawn liked the pain-numbing epidural shot she got during her last delivery. She wanted another epidural this time around. But hospital staff had to deal with an emergency appendectomy, and the shot wasn’t available.

“I thought she was going to start throwing furniture,” her husband said.

Around the world, the first baby of the new year was apparently born at 12:01 a.m. in Auckland, New Zealand, the first developed country to hit 2000, according to a First Babies of 2000 Internet site.

In Spokane, Alexander James Weidemann was born at 12:06 a.m. to Michelle and Justin Weidemann at Holy Family Hospital.

Along with the Strawns’ son, at least four other babies were delivered at KMC since midnight, a maternity ward staffer said Saturday afternoon, with another baby expected before today.

No other North Idaho hospitals reported babies born Saturday.

Moscow’s Gritman Medical Center, however, expected a baby born before today, a staffer said.