Editor’s Note: This story was originally published on Omaha.com

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By Roger Buddenberg
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER

It appears the Bellevue Medical Center can claim the first Omaha metro-area baby born in 2013. But the bundle of joy was almost the last of 2012.

Kayla and Ross Ray, ages 24 and 26, said they drove the few blocks to Bellevue Medical Center shortly after her water broke about 10:30 p.m. Monday. At one minute into the new year, Colton Alexander Ray arrived, all 6 pounds and 18½ inches of him.

The father, an Air Force staff sergeant stationed at Offutt Air Force Base, said they had been joking recently that the baby, not due till Jan. 25, would arrive just late enough to deny the family a 2012 tax deduction. “And he did.”

The Rays, who have lived in the area about four years, have an elder son, Wyatt, 21 months old, who went with them to the hospital because “there was no one to watch him,” said Ross Ray. That’s OK, he said, because “the military teaches you multitasking.”

He said Wyatt slept through his brother’s arrival.

“He’s pretty excited” to have a new brother, his mother said Tuesday. “He’ll give him a kiss.”

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