‘All he knows’: New Year’s baby to pandemic parents, York County family embraces 2020
The baby isn’t supposed to be here yet. Dad gets a call at work — to hurry. Fireworks burst on every hour. Cities warm “Auld Lang Syne” from its slumber. A ball drops. Crowds shout, and kiss. Three, two, one.
Welcome to 2020.
“He had his little bit of fame,” said Joshua Lewis, who along with Maria Gomien welcomed the couple’s first child Aiden less than an hour into 2020. “It was neat. It was a really cool experience. I guess we couldn’t ask for a better day for him to be born.”
For a better year? Perhaps.
“It’s going to be great,” Gomien now recalls of the many thoughts that raced through her mind as she welcomed her New Year’s baby.
“That’s what everybody said, you know? It’s a new year,” Lewis said. “Everybody’s going to make 2020 great. It’s going to be awesome.”
“Then COVID happened,” Gomien said.
A year later, Aiden is still growing. He marks milestones. He can call for mama, and crawl. The Lake Wylie couple can’t look at Aiden without the paradox. What if the worst year most anyone can recall, is the best you’ve ever had?
“It’s all he knows,” Lewis said, “and hopefully everything in the world doesn’t change forever.”
Parenting in a pandemic
Some new parent challenges — diapers, teething, feeding at all hours, sleepless nights — are common to any year. Those times come and go.
“He doesn’t have that little baby cry,” Lewis said. “He has that toddler cry. It’s terrible.”
Other challenges fit 2020.
“No great-grandparent interactions this year, unfortunately,” said Gomien, 24. “Definitely the family reunion was a big one. That was going to be the first time all my cousins and my grandparents would get to meet him. We had to cancel that.”
Gomien’s grandmother hasn’t met Aiden, and has social distancing concerns of her own.
“She’s in Ohio,” Gomien said. “She’s quite far out there and she’s older, and in a nursing home. That would be more of a difficult situation to get up there. They’re not letting her see anybody right now.”
Lewis, 25, recalls the frantic call at work last New Year’s Eve before Aiden arrived three weeks early. Like roughly 28,000 York County residents who filed claims since the pandemic began, Lewis felt the sting of unemployment.
“Unfortunately I did lose my job due to COVID,” he said. “So that’s one of the reasons why I’ve been home. I guess that would be the low.”
Still, the family of three finds joy even in the low points.
“He’s grown a lot in his first year, so that was great to see first-hand,” Lewis said. “Because a lot of parents wouldn’t have that, they wouldn’t be there 24 hours with their kid for an entire year. That was a great experience.”
In some ways Aiden helps avert issues many people face in 2020. There’s a monotony to months without travel or dinner at a restaurant. Lewis and Gomien felt it too. It could be Tuesday or a birthday, and largely it remained just the three of them (both sets of Aiden’s grandparents do visit some). With a brand new baby, there’s always something new to experience.
“It’s been fun for the most part,” Gomien said. “Even with COVID, it’s still been awesome. He has brought lots of joy to our lives.”
New Year’s baby
For many, this New Year’s Eve won’t have the excitement and celebration compared to a year ago. Gomien doesn’t have that concern.
“I had my bags packed like a week before, thank goodness,” she recalls, “because if not it would’ve been hard to do that running out the door.”
Aiden was the first baby born in 2020 at Atrium Health in Pineville, North Carolina. He arrived at 12:42 a.m., at five pounds, 12 ounces and 17.5 inches long. Aiden still plays with some of the toys from the gift basket the hospital gave him to celebrate first-born status.
Gomien and Lewis figure Aiden’s birthday will come up plenty as he grows. Asked how they might someday explain to him the year he was born, both parents cringe.
“I don’t know how to describe 2020, actually,” Lewis said. “It’s changed everything. I never thought I’d see something close down the whole world.”
New Year’s 2021
Pandemic or not, Aiden is a healthy, growing boy. He watches Little Baby Bum and gets into messes.
“He’s started to crawl,” Gomien said. “Now he’s trying to walk. Yep, getting into everything.”
Aiden can stand by himself. It won’t be long before the family is on to another stage.
“He’s getting close to walking,” Lewis said. “He just doesn’t want to let go yet.”
Many may be ready to let go of 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic. There are signs of hope. Vaccines are now in distribution. Still, with high case counts common now in York County and beyond, concern lingers.
“I’m worried about when he gets older,” Gomien said. “COVID is still happening now. Are we still going to be wearing masks three years from now? Is he going to be going to school wearing a mask? We don’t know.”
Lewis continues his job search. He sees people work and teach from home now, employers keyed into productivity upticks from remote employees.
“What all is going to stay changed after this is over?” Lewis said. “I’m sure a lot of things are not going to be the same.”
Change will come quickly in 2021. The family won’t spend New Year’s Day in labor at the hospital. There will be a first birthday, even if the party is small. Gomien and Lewis figure they’ll be up to watch the midnight ball drop. They’re accustomed to waking at all hours now, so why not?
Not that Gomien minds. Late nights, early mornings, a 2020 pandemic — there’s one constant that makes it all more than bearable.
“Babies make things better,” she said.
Sometime later on New Year’s Day, the family will celebrate Aiden. Lewis already can imagine years of birthday parties.
“It’ll be cool to have his birthday right on New Year’s because everyone likes to party and have a little fun on New Year’s anyway,” Lewis said.
Especially this year, when many will be as happy to see one year go as they are a new one coming.
“Everyone wants to move on with life,” Lewis said.
This story was originally published January 1, 2021 at 5:34 AM.
