CINCINNATI – Megan Tiffany was ready to join the world 30 minutes before the ball dropped on New Year's Day in 1987.
Hold on, her parents said. Not so fast.
Cradling her newborn the next day, Megan's mother told WCPO how Megan got to be a 1987 baby instead of a 1986 baby.
"It's 11:30 and she was ready to be born, so that's when they told me to stop doing whatever I was doing and we sat there and held our breath for a good half hour and here she is," she said.
Megan arrived at 14 seconds after midnight - two seconds earlier than a baby born across town.
WATCH Megan's story in the video player above.
What some parents won't do to have their babies born on New Year's Day. Better yet, to be the first baby born in the Tri-State in the New Year.
Yomna Mawas put her mother through 29 hours of labor before she was born at 12:04 a.m. on New Year's Day in 2007.
Megan, of Springdale, and Yomna, of West Chester, were the winners in the Tri-State New Year's baby derby 30 and 10 years ago, respectively. Twenty years ago, the winner was Nicholas Ryan Scholl of Alexandria, Kentucky.
The winners usually get gifts from baby stores and a commemorative from the hospital, but the real prize – besides their newborn – is a story to tell family and friends for the rest of their lives. And maybe a minute and 15 seconds of fame on television.
While Megan's mom held her back, Megan's dad said he stood by at Bethesda Hospital nervously watching the clock and encouraging his wife.
"Sweating, sweating. Saying to myself, 'I hope she can hold her breath that long,'" he said.
Yomna apparently had her own ideas about when she would be born. She was two weeks early, her parents said.
WATCH Yomna's story and see other New Year's babies from 2007.
"It was a horrible time," her mother, Dima, said about her grueling labor marathon, "but finally when I saw her coming, I forgot everything else. I was so happy, pleased."
There was a scare about 10 minutes before Yomna was born, when a nurse said she couldn't detect a heartbeat. But doctors and nurses came running and didn't find a problem.
"So we went from panic to happiness," said Mawas' father, Hosam.
Yomna's name means "from blessing and goodness," her parents said.
By comparison, Nicholas Scholl's birth at St. Elizabeth South was pretty routine for the parents of five. But his dad, William, remarked about one thing.
"He's the first one who has hair," he said.
WATCH Nicholas' story.
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