Parents thrilled about New Year's Day babies

Hamad Al Shamsi has a real reason to make 2012 a better year than ever. "I have been blessed with a healthy baby girl, and this wonderful event marks the tone of the rest of the year for me," Al Shamsi, 32, told Gulf News on Sunday. I have been blessed with a healthy baby girl, and this wonderful event marks the tone of the rest of the year for me. Hamad Al Shamsi The Emirati engineer is father to 2012's first baby born in the capital city's Corniche Hospital, a healthy girl weighing 3.3kg who was delivered at 12.15am on January 1. "The arrival of our firstborn on the first day of the year is the best way to start this new journey. My wife and I have decided to name her Mariam, a name that is common to Emirati culture and one that we like very much," Al Shamsi said. Article continues below In a nearby room, ecstatic young Emirati mother Ameenah Al Mazroui, 20, also welcomed her son Abdullah, who was the last baby delivered at the hospital in 2011. ‘Momentous' year Fireworks illuminate the Burj Khalifa, the tallest man-made structure in the world Pyrotechnics extravaganza "Abdullah's birth marked the end of a momentous year for me. I got married in the first month of 2011, and am overjoyed to have become a mother for the first time in the last month of the year," Ameenah told Gulf News. Both babies were delivered normally and were healthy along with their mothers, confirmed Pamela Bartridge, the hospital's nursing supervisor. In Dubai, a few minutes after midnight, a baby girl greeted the New Year at Dubai's Al Wasl Hospital. The girl was named Al Anood by her parents, a Moroccan mother and an Emirati father. Al Anood in Arabic means "a doe-eyed beauty". The baby of normal weight was born at 12.34am. Missing the New Year by one-and-a half-hours, a baby boy was born at 10.35pm on December 31, the last baby to be born last year at Al Wasl Hospital. The parents, an Emirati couple, did want to make a big deal of the timing, but were very happy about the new bundle of joy in their family. They had not yet decided the boy's name when Gulf News visited the hospital. The joy of becoming parents was threefold for another set of parents at the maternity hospital as they welcomed healthy triplets. "I have been up all night, but like my entire family, my happiness knew no bounds when our babies arrived yesterday morning. It is still beyond belief that God has blessed us with two sons and a daughter as we start this year," said Hassan Saeed Al Za'abi, a 37-year-old armed forces officer from Abu Dhabi. The babies, named Mohammad, Zayed and Dana, were delivered by C-section and Al Za'abi said they were doing well. In Al Ain's Oasis Hospital, the first baby of the New Year weighing 3.095kg was born at 8.08am to Jasem Hamad Ebrahim Al Raeesi and Laila Abdul Rahman, both of the UAE.