First Oahu baby
of ’05 brings
his mom relief

Being done with pregnancy
means more to Pele Lafaele
than the birth honor

FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Pele Lafaele held her newborn son and Oahu's first baby of 2005, Manu Mika, yesterday at Kaiser Moanalua Medical Center.

It was a distinction that meant a lot to her maternity ward nurses.

But Pele Lafaele, mother of the first Oahu baby born in 2005, was just happy to be finished with her pregnancy.

"I think the nurses were more excited about it than me," said the 37-year-old with a laugh. "I was hoping he'd come out on Thanksgiving."

Manu Mika, who was given the same name as his dad, was born at Kaiser Moanalua Medical Center at 12:16 a.m. on New Year's Day.

He weighed in at 8 pounds, 6 ounces.

So often, said Kaiser nurses, Kapiolani Medical Center gets the first baby of the new year. Last year's first baby on Oahu was born at the Queen's Medical Center.

Baby Manu was a bit of "a surprise," said Lafaele, who wasn't expecting to get pregnant. "At first, I was hoping it was going to be a girl," she added, smiling at her newborn.

But the baby's father, 40-year-old Manu Mika, said he was overjoyed at the prospect of another man in the house.

Lafaele said all of her boys were, too.

Lafaele, a Star-Bulletin classifieds representative, has four other boys from another marriage, ranging in age from 13 to 20. Lafaele's 19-year-old son Michael is a University of Hawaii football player.

"They all carried him last night," she said. "They're going to be very protective of him."

At about 7 p.m. on New Year's Eve, Lafaele started getting regular contractions. She and her husband rushed to the hospital from their Waianae home soon afterwards, missing out on a family celebration.

But yesterday afternoon, relatives brought them leftovers from the party.

They also left behind balloons, flowers and kisses for the little one, and remarked on the infant's big, black eyes and long, spindly fingers.

All the while, the little Manu slept soundly in the crook of Lafaela's right arm.

He wasn't even fazed by the flashes of a news photographer's camera. The baby did open his eyes slightly, though, when father Manu held him.

The infant cooed back to sleep peacefully when his father brushed a gentle finger along the baby's cherubic cheeks and bow mouth.