BILLINGS — As people cheered and fireworks erupted into the night sky when the year turned from 2022 into 2023, Jessica Roddy and Brody Strock had a different sound ringing in their new year.
A lullaby could be heard throughout the hospital at St. Vincent Healthcare at 2:24 a.m. Sunday morning as a healthy baby boy, Aidoneus Jason Charles Strock, weighing six pounds, 14 ounces and 19 inches long, became the first baby welcomed in 2023 at St. Vincent Healthcare.
“He’s just been so calm and just very relaxed. I’m like that’s funny because he’s a New Year’s baby and New Year’s is all about, you know hooting and hollering and everything, you know? And nope, not him,” Roddy said.
While baby Aidoneus was the first to come in the new year, in 2022 St. Vincent Healthcare welcomed 1,668 babies in their newly renovated birthing center. In 2022, the hospital completed an over $1 million renovation of the birthing center.
“It was pretty exciting to have the first baby of the year. It was kind of a shock,” Roddy said.
Strock said he wouldn't have wanted to start the 2023 in any other way than welcoming his first child with Roddy.
Roddy's original due date was January 12.
Zach Benoit, the Billings Clinic community relations coordinator, said Sunday the clinic welcomed their first delivery of the new year with a healthy baby boy born at 6:25 p.m. According to Benoit, in 2022 Billings Clinic delivered 942 babies.
