Week after due date, baby among first to be born on LI in 2023
Julia Natanov’s baby girl was due on Christmas Day, but instead her daughter entered the world a week late and shortly after midnight Sunday she earned the lifelong claim as one of Long Island’s New Year's babies of 2023.
The 7-pound-10-ounce bundle of joy is the first child for Natanov and her husband Jonathan of Flushing, Queens, who had entered NYU Langone Hospital — Long Island in Mineola about 25 hours before the birth. As every hour passed without delivery Saturday, it slowly dawned on the couple that their daughter wasn’t going to be born in 2022.
“I know that this is going to be one of those stories that [gets told at] every family function and family event,” said Natanov, a nurse at one of NYU’s Manhattan hospitals.
“You make plans and God laughs,” she said.
Julia and Jonathon Natanov's newborn baby girl, as yet unnamed, was born at 12:07 a.m. on New Year's Day. Credit: James Carbone
Not that the timing really mattered, they both said. They were just happy their baby, who does not yet have a name, is healthy.
The newborn, wrapped in a hospital blanket and a pink hat with a bow, slept peacefully nearby as mom and dad described her entrance in a Newsday interview from the hospital bed Sunday. Jonathan joked that it is not every girl that gets a professional photo shoot on her first day in the world.
The parents, both 27, said they were grateful their doctor Jonathan Herman, who was not supposed to be working New Year’s Eve, unexpectedly arrived around 11:40 p.m. Saturday. The baby was born at 12:07 a.m.
“It was thanks to him I managed to deliver within like 25 minutes,” Julia Natanov said. “It’s nice to have the same one who went through the process with you for nine months.”
She might not be a Christmas baby, but Julia acknowledged it will take a little extra work to ensure New Year’s Day doesn’t overshadow her daughter’s birthday.
“We have to always make sure her birthday is extra special,” she said.
Looking to the immediate future, the pair say they have a plan to navigate the new world of late night feedings and sleepless nights.
“My wife's a night owl and I'm an early bird,” Jonathan said. “We'll take shifts.”
With Steve Langford
Vera Chinese covers Suffolk County government and politics. She joined Newsday in 2017 after working as an editor for the East End lifestyle publication northforker and a general assignment reporter for the New York Daily News.
