NEW YEAR'S BABY

Riverdale welcomes the first baby of 2011

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Stephanie Nussbaum and Michael Kress got a New Year’s Day gift of a beautiful baby girl.

At 6 pounds, 5 ounces, the bundle of joy arrived at 9:55 p.m. on Jan. 1 at Lenox Hill Hospital. She will be named Saturday at the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale.

Ms. Nussbaum went into labor on New Year’s Eve while eating dinner with her husband and a neighbor at her home on Arlington Avenue and West 231st Street. Luckily, the friend they were eating with had already offered to stay at home with the couple’s first daughter, 4-year-old Adira.

Though Ms. Nussbaum was in the early stages of labor, the couple set off for the hospital so as not to get stuck in New Year’s traffic or hospital chaos. There, nurses donned festive party hats.

Since things were moving slowly, hospital staffers sent Mr. Kress home for a few hours Jan. 1. But shortly after he arrived home, he received a call from the hospital to return.

He jumped in the car and got back “quicker than one should,” he said.

Soon after he arrived, so did the baby. Mr. Kress said labor went smoothly and that the family was looking forward to getting to know its newest member. Adira had already been honing her maternal instincts with dolls before the birth.

“She is certainly a great New Year’s present,” Mr. Kress said of the new arrival.

Mr. Kress, the executive editor of Parents.com, the online version of Parents magazine, said the story of his second daughter’s birth was particularly fitting since “unusual birth” stories come up often at his job.

In fact, he said the Facebook page of Parents.com was requesting New Year’s baby stories when he first logged onto his computer to check his e-mail.

Both Ms. Nussbaum and Mr. Kress grew up in the New York area but met in Boston before moving to Riverdale, where they have been living happily for five years.

Ms. Nussbaum is an architect at the firm of Gertler & Wente Architects in Midtown Manhattan. The family is involved with the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and Conservative Synagogue Adath Israel of Riverdale.

The couple is at home and exhausted with their new baby girl.

“We’re very proud and grateful to have a second daughter and looking forward to settling down here [in Riverdale] with her and the family,” Mr. Kress said.

first baby of the year, Michael Kress, Stephanie Nussbaum

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