15-year-old gives birth to Trenton's first baby of 2009

TRENTON — Two teen lovebirds described yesterday as their happiest New Year yet as they jumped into parenthood with the birth of Nah’sir Rayzohn Moore — Trenton’s first born baby of 2009.
“It’s the best feeling ever,” 15-year-old Essence Underwood of Hamilton said 12 hours after giving birth to her first child. “I never thought I’d have a baby at age 15.”

“I’m happy, it doesn’t matter when he was born,” said Essence’s boyfriend of exactly two years and Nah’sir’s father, Glenn Ray Moore III, 16, of Burlington City.

Their newborn son weighed a healthy 5 pounds, 15 ounces as the infant rang in the new year at 4:18 a.m. in front of his newfound relatives at Capital Health System-Mercer Campus hospital.

“We have no choice but to be ready,” Essence said, adding that the pregnancy was unplanned but welcomed. “I can take care of him and show him things in life. Hopefully he can be a better person than me — not that I’m bad. I hope he goes to college and becomes something in life.”

Essence attends the Mercer County Project TEACH alternative school for pregnant or parenting teens. Glenn is a 10th-grade student at Burlington City High.

Like mom, the child’s daddy expressed hopes that his baby boy will grow into a fine man who excels in school and embarks on a prestigious career.

Essence said she was “OK” going through the labor process, but “it was painful at the end when it was time to push. I kept getting up crying and screaming.” She said she isn’t thinking about having any more kids; Glenn said he might consider having more when he’s older.

So how did the name “Nah’sir” come about? “I looked on the Internet for his (first) name,” Essence said. “We chose from many different types of names, and we finally chose Nah’sir. I thought it would be interesting to put the apostrophe in the middle.”

The middle name “Rayzohn” is a combination Glenn’s middle name and the first name of his late grandpa John. Glenn said it was his mom’s idea to “get creative” by replacing the “J” with a “Z” — hence the name Rayzohn.

The couple couldn’t stop smiling as they cradled the sleeping infant in their arms. Occasionally the little fella would open his eyes and gaze around. The couple took turns feeding their son Similac infant formula. “He looks like Glenn when he was a baby,” Nah’sir’s mommy said.

Essence said “the interesting thing” about her and Glenn is that “two years ago we got together on New Year’s.”

Glenn was asleep when Nah’sir was about to be delivered. Relatives rushed over and woke him up for the big moment.

“I was still half asleep,” the father said last night. “I didn’t start getting with it until 10 minutes later. I’ve slept like 15 minutes (since his birth), and (Essence) made me go to sleep.”

Regretting his initial sleepiness during the big moment at 4:18 a.m., he said, “That’s exactly why I was up all this time.”

Ebony Underwood, Essence’s 14-year-old sister, said, “I ain’t thinkin’ about having kids,” but she added that the birth of Nah’sir “is great. It’s awesome holding him and his small body.”

Nah’sir is Lisa Woodson’s first grandchild. Woodson, Essence’s mom, joked that the good thing about being the grandmother is she can hold the child “and then hand him over” to his parents. “Everything (Essence) does, I want to do,” Woodson said. “She will need help, especially getting up in the middle of the night.”

The couple and their relatives had arrived at CHS-Mercer during the morning of New Year’s Eve. But with the way things were playing out, “I kept looking at the time,” Glenn said, “and I was like, ‘He’s gonna be born on New Year’s.’ ”