First Baby Born at UCSF in 2012

January 3, 2012

Luis Gutierrez, Eveth Martinez and their son Joey

Luis Gutierrez, 30, and fiance Eveth Martinez, 27, pose with their newborn son Joey, who was the first baby born at UCSF in 2012.

Joey Santino Gutierrez was supposed to be a Christmas baby, or so his parents thought. Due on December 24, his mother Eveth Martinez, 27, spent Christmas eve and Christmas day anxiously awaiting the arrival of her second son.

Registered nurse Janelle Stein feeds a bottle to Joey Gutierrez at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital.

Instead, Joey kicked off 2012 for his parents and UCSF, as the first baby born at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in 2012. Born at 7:43 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2012, Joey weighed in at 7 pounds, 15 ounces, a healthy baby boy. Martinez was among seven women in labor on New Year's Eve, but Joey was the first to make his debut at UCSF. The first baby born in San Francisco was delivered at California Pacific Medical Center at 12:02 a.m.

Martinez and fiancé Luis Gutierrez live in San Francisco’s Mission District with their seven-year-old son. And will they try for a girl? “Not for a long time!” said Martinez, just five hours after giving birth. “We’re going to space them out.”

Martinez was originally a patient at St. Luke's Hospital, however because she suffers from epileptic seizures, she was transferred to UCSF to have access to world-renowned specialists in neurology.

Joey is the first of about 2,000 babies who will be born at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital this year. Starting in 2015, those babies will be born at UCSF’s new 289-bed children's, women's, and cancer hospital in Mission Bay – which will offer a 36-bed center for mothers and newborns, including nine deluxe labor and delivery rooms.

UCSF has not had the first San Francisco baby born in the new year since 2007, when it happened for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century.