Hawaii welcomes New Year’s babies for 2021

HONOLULU (KHON2) — Several babies across the state couldn’t wait to make their big debut.

The first baby born in Hawaii was at 12:04 a.m. Friday, Jan. 1, 2021 at Adventist Health Castle.

Aloha Leilani Pearl Nehenehe Tepa clocked in at 8 pounds and 20-and-a-half inches.

Mom and dad say she’s the reason why they kept having faith that everything was going to be ok despite how stressful 2020 was.

“At the beginning of the year of 2020 we lost our baby too,” said mom Mahana Tepa. “I had a miscarriage. So it was a really hard time for us.”

“Baby is a miracle,” said dad Ariitu Tepa. “She’s the reason why we kept having faith that everything is going to be ok throughout all this year. This whole crazy year. We kept hoping, and we kept doing our best because we had to for her.”

Mom and dad say the reason why they chose to name her Aloha is because it means the breath of life and that’s what she represents for both of them.

About a half hour later, Oahu’s second baby of the year was born at Kaiser Permanente.

Mom said she started having contractions around 3:30 p.m and baby Kaito was born 50 minutes past midnight.

“We started coming here early afternoon so not much fireworks going on,” said dad Michael Cera. “Actually we missed a lot of fireworks but as someone mentioned earlier we kinda had our own fireworks going on so yeah we had the window open so we could see it but we only peeked out every now and then and then it was oh. Back to focusing on the baby.”

Baby Kaito weighed in at 7 pounds 5.6 ounces, and measured 19-and-a-half inches long.

Mom and baby are doing just fine.

The first baby born at Kapiolani Medical Center for Women and Children was at 3:02 a.m. Glen and Jessica Hernando welcomed baby girl Jacelen Heart Hernando who weighed in at 6 pounds 4.6 ounces.

Then at 7:34 a.m. Baby boy Jordan Nakihei was born at Maui Memorial Medical Center to parents
Kristen Richardson-Demello and Terrell Nakihei. He came into the world weighing 7 pounds 11 ounces, and measured 20 inches long.

Welcome to the world!

Correction: An earlier version of this story had the incorrect location of Adventist Health Castle. Adventist Health Castle is located in Kailua. The story has been corrected.