![\"Cashay](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/STT-L-NEWYEARS-0102-03.jpg\")
Cashay Clarke and Christian Tahji welcomed their new baby boy Concise Midnight Tahji just after 2 a.m. on New Year\u2019s Day. (SUBMITTED)<\/p>\nA Blakely couple who had a rough 2025, welcomed the new year in one of the best ways possible \u2014 with a brand new healthy baby boy.<\/p>\n
Concise Midnight Tahji made his appearance at Geisinger Community Medical Center at 2:17 a.m. on Jan. 1, the first baby of the year to be born at the health care facility.<\/p>\n
Just over a month ago, Cashay Clarke and Christian Tahji, now of Blakely, saw their house on Myrtle Street in Scranton destroyed by fire and faced the prospect of moving to a new house while Clarke was more than eight months pregnant.<\/p>\n
Cashay Clarke and Christian Tahji welcomed their new baby boy Concise Midnight Tahji just after 2 a.m. on New Year\u2019s Day. (SUBMITTED)<\/p>\n
But, the couple pushed through, grateful for their healthy family, which includes their two-year-old son Creation Jinsei.<\/p>\n
So, when Clarke\u2019s Dec. 26 due date came and went, she was aware that she could have the baby on the first day of the year.<\/p>\n
That was fine with her. But she was concerned about another issue of timing.<\/p>\n
Her son Creation Jinsei\u2019s birthday is on Jan. 2.<\/p>\n
So, when she went into labor at about 1 p.m. on New Year\u2019s Eve, she absolutely didn\u2019t want to be in labor more than one day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just didn\u2019t want him to be born on his brother\u2019s birthday,\u201d she said. \u201cEverybody needs their own day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The couple waited until about 6 p.m. to head to the hospital, where they began the wait for their new son.<\/p>\n
Clarke noted that she stopped to eat before getting there, because often mothers are not allowed to eat immediately before giving birth.<\/p>\n
After arriving at the hospital, they took to social media updating their friends and family with the progress of labor and their activities as they waited.<\/p>\n
Those watching the posts guessed when the baby would be born and shared words of encouragement.<\/p>\n
The one thing the couple did do before the birth, was watch the ball drop at Time Square.<\/p>\n
As they counted down, they were also counting down to the birth of their son, they said.<\/p>\n
Clarke was determined to have her baby naturally and succeeded in that goal, even though the birth process was \u201ca lot\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got through it,\u201d she said. \u201cAt one point I went from six centimeters to nine centimeters in 30 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Throughout the process, she said, her husband was her rock.<\/p>\n
Moses Taylor welcomes first baby<\/p>\n
Across the city at Moses Taylor, the first baby of the year for that health care facility arrived just before 1 a.m.<\/p>\n
Destiny and James named their 6.7 pound boy Luis.\u00a0 He measured 20 inches in length.<\/p>\n
![\"Luis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/STT-L-NEWYEARS-0102-02.jpg\")
Luis came into the world at Moses Taylor hospital just before 1 a.m. on New Year\u2019s Day. The baby boy was born to proud parents Destiny and James of Scranton, marking a joyful start to the New Year for their family and the hospital care team. (SUBMITTED)<\/p>\n
The hospital facility noted that the birth marked \u201ca joyful start to the New Year for their family and the hospital care team.\u201d<\/p>\n
The facility doesn\u2019t release last names of juveniles because of safety and privacy concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Blakely couple who had a rough 2025, welcomed the new year in one of the best ways…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2118,201,182,139,28,178,180,179,729],"class_list":{"0":"post-75806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-scranton","8":"tag-blakely","9":"tag-lackawanna-county","10":"tag-local-news","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-scranton","14":"tag-scranton-headlines","15":"tag-scranton-news","16":"tag-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}