New Year’s Baby: Gabriel Edward fits right in

January 26, 2017

By David Nordby

The Brillion News

REEDSVILLE – Gabriel Edward Duchow was born on January 9 at six pounds, nine ounces, 20 ½ inches and immediately joined local tradition.

This year’s New Year’s Baby is all in the family. Born to Nichole and Brian, Gabriel joins his great aunt, Pam Schuh, who was the New Year’s Baby in 1968. Nichole’s cousin gave birth to Brinley Miller, who was the New Year’s Baby in 2010.

“We’ve known about the [New Year’s Baby] for awhile,” Nichole said.

Nichole and Brian live in Reedsville but both graduated from Brillion High School and have been married since July 2013. Gabe, as he will be commonly referred to the couple says, is Nichole and Brian’s first boy and second child. Their daughter, Victoria, will turn two on February 11.

Gabriel Edward’s name had been chosen if the couple had a boy the first time around, but Nichole had a feeling she was having a girl then. She made it two-for-two when she guessed she was having a boy this time around.

“My gut feeling had told me boy so I wasn’t really surprised,” Nichole said. She chalks it up to “mother’s intuition.”

The mother’s intuition might have given it away, but the couple wasn’t going to find out from a doctor ahead of time for Gabe, just like they didn’t for Victoria.

“You don’t get many surprises in life,” Brian said.

The couple wanted to find out at the same time Nichole’s grandmother did in the years before medical advancements – right at birth.

“It’s coming home regardless,” Nichole said smiling. “It’s not going to change how I feel about it.”

Nichole described the birth as an easy labor where he came two days early.

In his first two weeks Gabe has been sleeping well during the night but the couple is still deprived of sleep.

“It’s a lot of alarm clocks waking up to feed, just not him being the alarm clock,” Nichole said.

Please see the complete story in the January 26, 2017 edition of The Brillion News.