New Year’s baby a Bareman family tradition

Sometimes fortune has occasion to smile on odd circumstances. And the odds against having two new year’s babies in the same extended family? Virtually astronomical, right?

You’d be wrong. Beating those odds in 2014, Taber’s newest addition Alina Marie Bareman arrived on the wings of a stork at 3:09 a.m. on Jan. 3 at the Taber Hospital.

Alina joins grandmother Alice Bareman in the ranks of the honoured few. Another new year’s baby, Alice was born on Jan. 1, 1954. Grandmother and granddaughter ought to be able to trade a few yarns on that topic once the young lady starts walking and talking.

Natalie and Travis Bareman, the proud parents of Taber’s newly-minted eight-pound-eleven-ounce bundle of joy, noted the competition for new year’s baby 2014 came right down to the wire, as another birth was ongoing at the hospital in the same timeframe.

“We came in around suppertime last night (Jan. 2). It wasn’t going that fast, so we ended up going back home for awhile,” said father Travis. “We came back at midnight, and they told us they’d come in while we were gone, and were in the other delivery room. The race was on.”

Alina, who is also 21 inches in length, managed to finish that race in top form — thanks to an exhausted mom, too, of course.

The youngster was just a little late in another area, however. With a due date of Dec. 28, 2013, Alina had been expected a little sooner. She joins older siblings Jonah (2), Ethan (4) and Gavin (16).

Mother Natalie had shrugged off the idea of having a new year’s baby, but considering her due date, she knew it could be a possibility.

“Everyone kept saying ‘well, maybe you’ll have the new year’s baby’. It kind of got to the point where you just didn’t want to hear it anymore. But then it was kind of ironic to actually end up having the new year’s baby. I guess the joke’s on us now.”