Kyle and Melanie Wilson welcomed daughter Rosaia Christine Wilson at 11:02 a.m. on Jan. 8. She is the first baby born on San Juan Island in 2019, and winner of the Journal’s Baby Derby.
“We had some false labor [pains], the day before, so we went over a day early,” Kyle said.
Other than pranking her parents with phony alarms, Rosaia’s birth was relatively easy, at Island Hospital in Anacortes, according to Melanie. It was fairly quick also, lasting approximately seven hours.
The healthy baby weighs 7 pounds, 8 ounces, and is 19.1 inches long, and according to father Kyle, she has been wide-eyed taking in the world ever since.
“She is her own special angel,” said grandfather Gene Wilson, Kyle’s father. Rosaia is named after Gene’s mother, who was born on San Juan Island in a farmhouse in 1921.
The family arrived home from the hospital Jan. 9, where Rosaia joins three siblings, 7-year-old Kyra, 5-year-old Liam, and 2-year-old Quin.
“Kyra has been very excited to have a sister,” Kyle noted, adding that Liam will meet Rosaia after preschool on Jan. 10, and Quin has been giving his parents funny looks when they explain she came from “mommy’s tummy.”
Rosaia nearly shared a birthday with her not-yet-born cousin because Kyle’s sister, who lives in Tucson, Arizona, is also expecting a baby at any moment.
“We were really hoping they would share a birthday,” he said, but the cousins will still be close in age.
The couple met as Kyle was good friends with Melanie’s cousin, and after graduating from Friday Harbor High School, the two moved to Colorado, where he and Melanie met.
After a few years in Colorado, the couple moved back to the island. Kyle established his own business, Island Lock and Key. Melanie recently quit her job as office manager at Sotheby’s International Realty to raise the four children.
As winners of the baby derby, the couple won approximately $500 in gift certificates from local businesses including: Friday Harbor Drugstore, Browne’s Home Center, Ace Hardware, Pebble, San Juan Island Food Co-op, Kings, The Toybox, Harbor Rental and Saw Shop, Sea-Cure Fire Extinguisher Services, Islanders Bank, Petro San Juan, San Juan Propane, Osito’s, Horseshu Ranch and others.
See prizes on page 16.
