Mom gives birth on New Year's Day - again

For the second year in a row, Karen Giordano traded in her party dress for a hospital gown and rang in the New Year with a baby girl.

The Norwalk resident said she felt like she was having a dιjΰ vu moment when she spent her second New Year's Day at Greenwich Hospital, giving birth to a girl in the same room where she delivered the infant's sister one year before.

Alana Giordano, who was born at 7:10 p.m. on New Year's Day, will share her birthday with her sister, Carina Giordano, who was born at 10:32 a.m. Jan. 1, 2003.

"It's kind of the thing we do for New Year's," joked the girls' father, Angelo Giordano.

Giordano added he could not help but think of the financial benefits the couple would have enjoyed on their 2002 and 2003 tax returns had the girls been born a day earlier. "These girls don't want to give daddy a tax break."

His wife said she wanted to avoid another Jan. 1 birthday.

"I was hoping everyone would have their unique day," said Karen Giordano, 37, a senior systems analyst for Pepperidge Farm Inc.

But if anyone is used to celebrating a bundle of year-end birthdays, it is Karen Giordano. She was born on Dec. 18, her mother was born on Dec. 24, and her father was born on Dec. 29.

What's more, two of her older sisters were born a year and one day apart in April.

"I can get some advice from them," Karen Giordano joked, then added that she would consider celebrating her daughters' half-birthdays on different summer days. "I figure they can each have a unique half-year birthday."

Although it was against their parents' wishes, the two girls seemed determined to make an entrance on a holiday that is celebrated around the globe. Carina was due on Dec. 26, 2002, but didn't arrive until New Year's Day last year, weighing in at 7 pounds and 7 ounces.

"They were giving me a shot of morphine as the ball was dropping on TV," her mother recalled.

Alana was due on Jan. 6, but made an early entry at 6 pounds, 3 ounces. Karen Giordano said that when she checked into the hospital on the morning of Jan. 1, a nurse put a wristband on her at precisely 10:32 a.m., the time Carina was born.

"I was looking at the clock and I said, 'Oh my gosh!' " she said.

"You should change her name to Dιjΰ Vu," joked her husband, a massage therapist.

Asked whether she had made any New Year's resolutions this year, the girls' mother said she did have one goal in mind.

"Not to have a third on Jan. 1, that's my New Year's resolution," she said, smiling. "I made that during labor."