Record-Journal 01/02/2008
By Stacy L. Graham-Hunt
Record-Journal staff

MERIDEN — Brooklynn Marie Vasquez is Mid State Medical Center’s first baby of 2008. She was delivered at 12:19 p.m. Tuesday, weighed 6 pounds, 8 ounces and had a full head of hair.
“Mommy, can I touch her?” asked Brooklynn’s 2-year-old brother, Jaden Vasquez.
He rubbed her arm, and the corners of the baby’s tiny mouth went up, as if to form a smile.
Stacey Sanchez, 27, of Meriden, the third-time mother, arrived at the hospital around 9:30 p.m. on New Year’s Eve. She had been preparing chicken all day for her mother’s New Year’s Eve celebration. After she finished, her family had their coats on and were ready to head out, but then she told her fiancé, Robert Vasquez, 34, of Meriden, that her water had broken. He laughed.
“He thought I was joking,” Sanchez said.
Her baby wasn’t due until Friday, the same day Jaden was born. Sanchez said her fiancé and many of her other family members joked around about her having their baby on New Year’s Day.
“And it really happened,” Sanchez said as she raised her eyebrows and looked down at her newborn in her arms.
After she told Robert Vasquez they were going to have the baby very soon — since everyone already had their jackets on and the chicken was done — they delivered the food and their two sons to her mother’s house. Vasquez, unsure when he might get a chance to eat again that year, grabbed a plate for the road, and they headed to the hospital. Sanchez’s last meal of the year consisted of Popsicles.
“I didn’t get my chicken,” she said, smiling.
Sanchez and Vasquez brought in the New Year by watching the ball drop in Times Square on a television in the hospital room. She said she didn’t feel that much pain until the next morning.
Out of her three children, it was the easiest labor she’s ever had, she said.
“One, two, three, push, and that was it. She was done,” Sanchez said.
When the baby had been cleaned up and put into the hospital crib, Sanchez’s oldest son, Evan Vasquez, 6, stood by the baby’s bed, watching and staring at her through the sides of the bed. He said he is going to “take care of her.” Robert Vasquez said Brooklynn was their family’s present for 2008.
“I’m happy. It feels good,” Sanchez said.