The first Bay Area baby of 2015 has arrived, exactly as the clock struck midnight.
Dr. Fung Lam, who doubles as a photographer, snapped photos at California Pacific Medical Center California Campus in San Francisco of the baby girl named Fiona, as she was delivered precisely on Jan. 1.
"It was 12:00:00," Lam said, adding that he is sure of the time because a computerized fetal monitor spits out the number.
Apparently, Fiona tied in timing with a baby boy, also born exactly at 12 a.m. at Coney Island Hospital in Brooklyn. Coming in a close second, another boy was born at 12:01 a.m. at Montefiore Health System in the Bronx. She also beat some Chicago area babies by a full 60 seconds.
In San Francisco, Lam noted that he only documented the birth and his colleague, Dr. Yuan-Da Fan, helped get the baby out. Fan said he has delivered 13,000 babies during his career, six in the last 12 hours.
Fiona clocked in at 21 inches and 8 pounds.
She is the second child of parents YanFen Liang and TakWa Tang, who graciously allowed their photographs to be shared with the world. Lam said the mother "only pushed half an hour," and delivered Fiona naturally.
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Speaking through a Cantonese translator, Liang said her little girl is "already good with time, a good luck baby."
Though Fiona is traditionally an Irish name, Lam said the parents picked Fiona because it was "simple and beautiful." The parents wanted both their children, including 2-year-old Aiden, to have American-sounding names growing up in the United States. He added that Fiona will also get a Chinese name, which hasn't been chosen yet.
Shortly after giving birth, Mom mugged for the camera, with a bottle of sparking Martinelli's and plates of sandwiches nearby to celebrate, as she hugged her newborn, swaddled in a blanket splattered with a footsie print.
"The baby's doing well," Lam said, adding that the hospital is "delighted" that the first Bay Area baby was born on its campus. It's been an annual tradition for hospitals to publicize the first babies born of the year, and as of Thursday morning, no other Bay Area hospital had claimed the title, other than CPMC.
"That's the closest we've ever gotten," he said.
NBC Bay Area's Kimberly Tere contributed to this report.
