As many Chicagoans saw in the new year reveling with friends, glued to their TV sets or just sleeping it off, Sophia and Joshua Sartori brought new life into the world, delivering what may be the area’s first baby of 2025.
Scarlett Carmela Sartori was born at 12:12 a.m. at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center in Chicago’s Lakeview neighborhood, laying early claim to becoming the first new Chicagoan of the new year. Beyond the usual sounds of labor and childbirth, the 6-pound, 15-ounce girl was delivered to the song “Mr. Jones” by Counting Crows, which came up at random on a ’90s alternative station favored by her parents.
Listening to music helped fill time between contractions, they said.
“When she finally came, ‘Mr. Jones’ came on by the Counting Crows,” Sophia Sartori, 35, said during a video interview from the hospital Wednesday. “So we all said, ‘OK, this is going to be her special song, because that was playing all along when she finally came to the world.’”
A former English teacher, Sophia said their baby’s name was inspired by “The Scarlet Letter,” one of her favorite books.
Scarlett is the first child for the Sartoris, who live in Chicago’s Irving Park neighborhood. The hospital staff had been guessing whether Scarlett would be a New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day baby, and when midnight arrived it prompted a delivery room celebration anticipating that the baby girl might come into the world with a time-honored title attached to her name.
Joshua Sartori, 35, a former football player at Division III powerhouse North Central College who now works at Kraft Heinz in Chicago, said the odds for a New Year’s Day delivery rose soon after the labor process began.
“I was really hoping it would be a quick labor for not only her sake, but the fact that Dec. 30 is my birthday, and I wanted to share it with her,” he said. “But it became very clear early on that we were going to wait some time for her arrival.”
Assuming no other contenders emerge for the title, the Sartoris said they are enjoying not only the birth of their first child but the sudden celebrity of having the first Chicago baby of the new year.
“It is surreal,” Sophia said. “We are just so excited that we’re able to say that we have the first Chicago baby in ’25.”
A baby has been the symbol of the new year dating back to ancient Greece, according to Britannica.com. The Tribune has been tracking the first newborn in Chicago for decades, with some close competitions over the years and a few babies arriving within seconds after midnight.
The runner-up for first newborn of 2025 may be Preston Owen Gully, a 6-pound, 12-ounce boy delivered at 12:49 a.m. to Deneshia Overton and Perry Gully of Chicago at Northwestern Medicine Prentice Women’s Hospital.
Advocate Health had several other New Year’s Day deliveries, including Ethan Jovanni Maxinez, a 6-pound, 9-ounce boy born at 12:56 a.m. to Zara Amirova and Giovanni Maxinez at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. Julia Abdedeen, a 6-pound, 13-ounce girl, was born at 1:20 a.m. at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn to parents Shuroug and Mahmoud Abdedeen.
Other early 2025 babies included Lavaeh Brandt, a 4-pound, 12.8-ounce girl born to Ingrid Brandt of Chicago at 1:03 a.m. at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, and Aiden Jimenez, the 8-pound son of Rubicelda Morales and Jose Luis Jimenez Bello, who was delivered at 1:46 a.m. at Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago.
At 2 a.m., Crystal Serrano and Miguel Angel Romero Ojeda, who live on Chicago’s Southwest Side, welcomed their son Irving Miguel Romero Noli at St. Anthony Hospital in Chicago. Lukas Kuras, an 8-pound, 8-ounce boy born to Rachael Dewitt and Tomas Kuras of Plainfield, arrived at 2:06 a.m. at Rush Copley Medical Center in Aurora.
Claudia and Fernando Alonso of Waukegan joined the New Year’s birth parade when their 9-pound, 6-ounce daughter, Maria Alonso, made her entrance at 2:16 a.m. at Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital.
Brandt, who was admitted to the hospital Tuesday and gave birth several weeks ahead of her due date, said the timing of the delivery will be a special memory and a great story for her daughter to tell down the road.
“She’s going to look back at it and say, ‘I was really one of the first babies born in the new year,’” Brandt said Wednesday. “That’s pretty cool.”
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