2022 New Year's Baby

A New Year’s Surprise

It was a New Year’s surprise for 22-year-old Destiny Collins when she delivered her son 10 days early. Tobias George Collins was the first baby born at LeConte Medical Center in the year 2022. Baby Tobias arrived at 11:08 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 1, weighing 6 pounds, 8 ounces, and almost 20 inches long.

Collins says her medical care was so wonderful during the birth of her daughter in 2018 that she knew where she’d give birth the second time. Collins had some unexpected complications during her first pregnancy and says, “I was a little nervous that I’d have the same issues, but this time around was not as complicated. They took really good care of me, just like the first time.”

Collins was in Rogersville, Tennessee, an hour and a half away from LeConte Medical Center, when her water broke. She was surprised to begin labor, but made the drive to LeConte Medical Center so she could deliver. About 10 hours later, she held Tobias in her arms.

“I was grateful to have a healthy and happy baby,” says Collins. “Everyone from the doctor to the nurses was great. They listened to me and constantly checked on me, and I really didn’t feel like a burden.”

Collins says she didn’t expect to have the first baby of the New Year. “It was later in the morning, around 11 a.m. I kept cracking jokes about it being a race to see who in the unit would be the first to deliver between me and another mom.”

Her bundle of joy is now home with his mother and sister, 3-year-old Acelynn. Collins reports that big sister Acelynn was not overjoyed at first to learn she would have a brother, but since the baby came home, she has doted on and loved her new sibling. “She’s doing great with the newborn,” Collins says. “Now that he’s home, she’s over the moon.”

“Our staff provides patients with exceptional care, so a lot of patients return here to deliver,” says Karen Ott, OB nurse manager. LeConte Medical Center has been named a Best Maternity hospital by Newsweek, a Safe Sleep Hospital, and was previously designated a BEST for Babies hospital by the Tennessee Health Department and Tennessee Hospital Association.