New Year’s Day baby born early in the morning at St. Joseph’s
Janina Kalk thought she had everything planned out for her child’s birth.
The Burbank resident was scheduled to arrive at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center on Thursday to deliver her baby via C-section, which was what her doctors preferred.
However, that plan went out the window when she went into labor on New Year’s Eve and gave birth to her newborn son, Maxon Erick Perez, by way of natural birth at 2:34 a.m. on New Year’s Day.
“My fiance was saying for the last two months that [our child] was going to be a New Year’s baby,” Kalk said on Tuesday. “I told him, ‘No, he’s not. He’s going to be on time, and we have an appointment,’ but he was right, and it was pretty funny.”
Maxon was the first baby born at St. Joseph’s in 2018 and was the first child for Kalk and her fiance, Maxwell Perez.
Kalk said her doctors recommended that she have a C-section because they had concerns that her baby would be born a little underweight.
That was not the case for Maxon, who weighed 7 pounds, 14 ounces and was 20 inches long. Additionally, the newborn has been passing all of his post-birth tests, Kalk said.
“[My doctors] thought that he was going to be very tiny, but he ended up growing to a nice average size,” she said.
Kalk said she and her fiance wanted to have their son’s name be a spinoff of his father’s but still unique.
Though Maxon decided to arrive a few days earlier than planned, Kalk said the last few days have been an amazing experience for her and her fiance.
“[Maxon’s] pretty precious,” she said. “Everything’s been going great, and we’re excited to go home. He’s quite the blessing.”
anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com
Twitter: @acocarpio
