Tired and happy.
That’s how Tracy and Chuck Amadori felt Wednesday afternoon at Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital in Amherst, gazing at their new daughter.
Lilliana Rose Amadori, named for her great-great grandmother, arrived at 12:56 a.m. New Year’s Day, the apparent winner of the unofficial derby among area hospitals for the first baby of 2014. She is the couple’s first child.
Another baby arrived at 1:42 a.m. in Women & Children’s Hospital, according to Michael P. Hughes, spokesman for Kaleida Health.
At 4:07 a.m. in Sisters Hospital, a baby girl was born. After her birth, three others arrived throughout the morning there.
Like all new parents, Tracy and Chuck Amadori were content Wednesday to watch their daughter, snuggled in a blanket and pink cap, as she slept on her mother’s bed. Lilliana, born five days earlier than expected, weighs 7 pounds, 15 ounces, and she is 21¼ inches long.
“I started having some contractions on Sunday night, but since I’ve never been pregnant, I went to work Monday,” said Tracy Amadori, an X-ray technician for Gates Vascular Institute.
She was “up all night Monday” with contractions, and on Tuesday morning she went to her obstetrician, who sent her to the hospital. She gave birth to Lilliana via cesarean section.
The Grand Island couple, who did not know the baby’s gender before she was born, had been convinced the child would be a boy.
“We didn’t know. I don’t know why, I just had a feeling that it was a boy,” Tracy Amadori said. “I thought he would be like his father. My husband is big into comics and superheroes.”
She said the operating crew let Chuck Amadori announce, “It’s a girl.”
“It was shocking,” she said with a smile.
But the new father, a supervisor at the Grand Island Post Office, seemed more than happy with his little Wonder Woman, named after her great-great grandmother.
“I was very close with her,” Tracy Amadori said of her great-grandmother, “so we tried to modernize Lillian so it doesn’t sound so old.”
Lilliana and all babies born at Millard Fillmore Suburban and Women & Children’s hospitals will receive a Buffalo Sabres blanket this year. The Sabres are continuing their “Buffalo Baby” initiative. The program was developed last year by team owner Terry Pegula, his wife, Kim, and Sabres President Ted Black to welcome the babies. The hooded blanket sports a “14” on it, to signify the year.
“We are very excited to do the baby blanket program again in 2014, building on the success of last year, which saw us distribute over 7,000 blankets,” Black said.
News Staff Reporter Lou Michel contributed to this report. email: bobrien@buffnews.com
