THE Joseph family already had one thousand reasons to smile with the delivery of their youngest child Paige this week.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
But baby Paige’s birth was a special cause for celebration throughout the halls of Tamworth hospital’s maternity unit.
The Tamworth-bub was the 1000th born at the hospital in 2016, on December 28.
This marks the second consecutive year the hospital has brought over 1000 bundles of joy into the world.
But the maternity milestone came as a big surprise to the Joseph family.
“We didn’t know anything about it,” Dad Graeme Joseph said.
“We were told when [wife] Chloe was having a Caesarean-section that it was more than likely going to be the 1000th baby.”
While staff in the ward knew baby number 1000 would be coming this week, it turned out to be a pretty close finish in the race to claim the milestone.
“I think [Paige] was the second baby born on the day,” Mum Chloe Joseph said.
“The midwives and doctors were very excited about.”
But the landmark birth wasn’t even close to the first thing on the minds of the Joseph family.
“I think at the time we were more worried about having a healthy baby,” Mr Joseph said.
“Unfortunately, we lost our last one… so we were a bit concerned with this one.
“She’s all good, we’ll hopefully be going home on Saturday.”
Now the Josephs are the proud-parents of Tamworth’s 1000th bub, but they were shocked by the number of babies coming through hospital.
“It’s a great number for Tamworth, I didn’t think there would be 1000 babies in Tamworth in a year,” Mr Joseph said.
“I didn’t think it would be anywhere near that. “I think they told us they used to average around 800, now they’ve had 1000 this year.”
Baby Paige joins older brother Reuben, 3, at home, but their parents are unsure about whether they will make another contribution to Tamworth’s population. “It depends on how much hair I lose,” Mr Joseph said.