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Local Families Welcome Babies On New Year’s Day

FORT SMITH, Ark. (KFSM) — With a new year comes new life. A  few local parents are celebrating the new decade by welcoming the first babies of the new year into...

FORT SMITH, Ark. (KFSM) — With a new year comes new life.

A  few local parents are celebrating the new decade by welcoming the first babies of the new year into the world.

Jazmyn Faith Black entered the world weighing in at 6 pounds, 15 ounces, and 21 inches at Baptist Health in Fort Smith.

Mom, Alexis Enkoff, and dad Brayden Black have known each other their entire lives.

“Since we were in diapers and we went to school together and grew up together.  We were always together. He’s always been my best friend," Enkoff said.

Alexis says since they were kids, Brayden had big plans for their future.

“I think I was on the monkey bars, and he came and catches me, and said he was going to have a family with me one day," Enkoff said.

Jazmyn was delivered via c-section on the same day her parents started dating.

“I’m not really afraid to ask anything and when we went to our second to the last doctor's appointment I just brought it up and asked if we can have it on our anniversary and they said it wasn’t a problem at all," Black said.

Jazmyn, named after the Disney princess, joins her older sister Jayzlee.

Unlike other 20-year old couples, this pair didn’t go out on new year’s eve but the parents don’t feel like they missed out on anything.

"No, I feel like I’m having a much better time then they are one hundred percent," Black said.

Instead, they started 2020 right with what they call a beautiful blessing.

“It’s like no other feeling in the world."

Jazmyn was not the first baby born in the River Valley on New Year Day, but she was one of them.

According to hospital staff, that honor goes to a little boy at Mercy Hospital in Fort Smith.

Another baby born on this New Year's Day in Northwest Arkansas was Ruby-Faye Elaine Jackson, born at 12:36 a.m. at Willow Creek Women's Hospital in Johnson. She weighed in at 7 pounds 3 ounces and parents Zachary Jackson and Hailey Grandon say seeing and holding their child after she was born at the start of a new decade was a very surreal moment.

“It was strange whenever she was in the womb trying to talk to a stomach you know, so it is cool to actually be able to see her and hold her,” the new parents said. “It`s very surreal. It`s a bond that you can’t really anticipate what people were saying and what they meant by that whenever they would say that it`s a bond that you just can`t explain but it really is. It`s like you`ve just known somebody your whole life.”

Doctors at Willow Creek delivered their last baby of 2019 at 11:58 p.m. and her name is Delilah.

Willow Creek wasn’t the only Northwest Arkansas hospital with parents welcoming new additions.

Washington Regional announced the birth of Louis Blasingame, who was born at 9:35 a.m. New Year’s morning. She weight 7 pounds and 1 ounce.

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