And while COVID can sometimes feel like it's closing in, there in the COVID ward - right over in the maternity ward, hope does spiring eternal and never more so than on the first day of the new year - when the auspicious first baby burst unto the scene, a happy conjunction of crying and cuteness.
That's right our next story is about the first babies of 2022, the baby boy and baby girl who came into the world on the very first day of the new year.
We visited their moms at home and in the hospital this morning for a dose of cuteness and a bit of hope for the year to come. Here's more:
A New year, it's often thought, brings new promise. That's been personified for decades in film and cartoons as a symbol of rebirth and new opportunities.
But, this morning, as is tradition, we met some real-life New Year's babies, the first ones born in Belize after the stroke of midnight on New Year's Eve. Here's what the first baby boy's mother told us about the happy coincidence.
Joezlee Estrada, Mother of newborn
"He was born at 9:39 AM on the first of January, he was the first one to be born and I thought it was, when it was time to give birth to him I thought he would have had to be born at 12:00 o'clock. I didn't know that he could have been born at any time of the day to be the first one or to gain everything that he would be gaining. When he was born at 9:31 AM the doctor told me that he is the first baby for the new year so he has the blessings for 2022. And I'm like oh my God and he said yes and I burst into tears of happiness and while hearing him crying I was crying as well."
"I wanted to have him from the time I had pain, Christmas day I had pain. He didn't want to come on Christmas day, he waited until the New Year. We will celebrate New Year's every day, the part."
Cherisse Halsall:
"Every Year?"
Joezlee Estrada, Mother of newborn
"Every year because the baby was born on New Year's. And I was like, mom are you guys serious and she's like yes because we have a New Year's baby."
But while Jozelee and her son had already sprung out of the hospital, we had to head back there to check on Shala Smith and her daughter, the third Belizean baby to be born in 2022.
Shala Smith, Mother of Newborn
"I'm just happy, this is all I ever wanted hmm. I feel really excited and nervous because I didn't know what to expect. I was tired, I'm just happy I got it over with that is all, And I don't know I'm just happy to have my baby."
"My original due date was the 26th but I don't know they didn't have me going on the 26th. I came in the, they told me to come in the 27th and I would have had the baby on the 28th but due to what I didn't swab I had to come back again and get a new date again and so they gave me, just tell me the 31st to come in. So I came in on the 31st."
"My little nephew wants to see her so badly every time I talk on the phone he asks if I can't video chat. I told them I can't because I don't have any internet, so when I come home you will see her."
But our data mostly worked inside hospital walls and so we made a quick video call to Shala's family so that the two cousins could get their first glimpse of each other. Here's how that went:
And they won't have long to wait because Shala and the baby girl are going home today.
The first KHMH birth of Jozelee Estrada's son was at 9:30 in the morning on New Year's day. He joins three other siblings, two brothers, and a sister while Shala Smith's baby girl is her first child
