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  • Kiera McClinton became the Mankato area’s first baby of 2013 at 2:17 a.m. on Tuesday. She is pictured with mother Angelene McClinton and brothers Brody (center) and Blake at Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato. John Cross

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January 1, 2013

And they’re off: Mankato’s first baby in 2013 arrives at 2:17 a.m.

By Tanner Kent Free Press Features Editor

MANKATO — Kiera McClinton bested all challengers at Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato to become the area’s first baby of 2013.

Arriving at 2:17 a.m. to parents Angelene and Sean McClinton of Mankato, baby girl Kiera secured local bragging rights — but was well off the national pace.

In Las Cruces, N.M., baby boy Dominic arrived at MountainView Regional Medical Center at 12:10 a.m. Not to be outdone, Aydan Alvarado became Chicago’s first baby at 12:08 a.m. But the top prize likely goes to Hadley Ann Wolstenholm, the Cincinnati baby born at 12:01 a.m.

Apparently, the mother and father are competitive types who found themselves in a neck-and-neck heat for the first-baby crown at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. The mother was quoted thus by the local NBC-TV affiliate:

“They told me I was pushing against somebody else that was about to have the first baby, so I said, ‘Well, I don’t like to lose.’ ... So, we gave it one more push and out she came.”

Considering the arrival times of Mankato’s last few New Year’s babies, however, little Kiera is a speedster.

In 2006, — which was a record-setting year for births at Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato with 1,636 — the first baby didn’t show up until 7:47 a.m. The first baby of 2012 didn’t check in until after 5 p.m. And in 2011, the first baby skipped New Year’s Day altogether and arrived instead on Jan. 2.

Kiera weighed just over 8 pounds and measured 20 inches. She is the couple’s third child.

There were 1,473 babies born at Mayo Clinic Health System in Mankato in 2012. That compares with 1,553 births at the medical center in 2011. The most popular names of babies born at the medical center in 2012 were Sophia, Isabelle and Abigail for girls; and Jackson, Henry and Brayden for boys.

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