LI families welcome New Year's Day babies

Brian and Nicole Tahlor remembered doctors and nurses counting down and the ball dropping on a television in the background.

"We all said Happy New Year," said Brian Tahlor. "Then a few seconds later, here she was."

"She" is the Tahlors' new baby girl, Briella Nicole, who was born at 12:01 a.m. Friday at Stony Brook University Hospital and is perhaps Long Island’s first baby of 2021. She weighs 7 pounds, 1 ounce.

At NYU Langone Hospital-Long Island in Mineola, a boy whose family is from Hempstead was born four minutes later, at 12:05 a.m. He weighs seven pounds and nine ounces, spokeswoman Anne Kazel said.

The "birth went smoothly," she said.

In a phone interview late Friday morning, Nicole Tahlor said she was happy to be "leaving that last year behind" and "so exhausted" after delivery.

"2021 has already brought so much to look forward to," Nicole Tahlor said.

The elder Tahlors, of Nesconset, are both 30. She works in the finance department of a defense contractor and he is an accountant.

Brian Tahlor said the family had been fortunate, despite the coronavirus pandemic.

"We still have our jobs and staying home together was a blessing in disguise," he said.

They spent good time with Briella’s 8-year-old big sister, Madison, bought a house and "prepared for this little one coming into the world," Brian Tahlor said.

Tahlor’s professional eye detected just one flaw in this beautiful tapestry: "Being a CPA, I’m pretty aware of the tax credit" the family missed when Briella emerged those few seconds after, rather than before, the stroke of midnight, he said.

Well, no matter. "We made it, everyone’s here, everyone’s healthy," he said. "This ended up being pretty cool."

With Catherine Carrera

By Nicholas Spangler

nicholas.spangler@newsday.comspanglernewsday

Nicholas Spangler is a general assignment reporter and has worked at Newsday since 2010.