AUGUSTA — Jesse Dodge IV was going to be either a Christmas baby, or a New Year’s baby.

Jamie Maroon’s original due date was on Christmas Eve, but “he made his choice, for sure,” she said.

Jesse was born at 1:29 a.m. to Maroon and her partner, Jesse Dodge III, weighing 8 pounds, 3 ounces, and measuring 21 inches.

He is MaineGeneral Health’s first baby of the year and first baby for Maroon and Dodge.

“Oh, I just cried,” Maroon said about when she saw her baby. “I had a C-section, so all I really heard was his cry and I got to see my Jesse’s face smile when he got to see him. I was so excited to hold him on my chest for the first time.”

Maroon said she had a feeling Jesse would be a boy.

Though the pair did a “gender reveal,” where her sister and Dodge’s brother knew the gender and the couple shot off confetti cannons, boys run on Dodge’s side, Maroon said.

“We knew he was going to be the fourth,” she said.

Maroon and Dodge have been together for four years and live in Fairfield.

Maroon, 23, works at Educare in Waterville, in the Headstart program with infants and preschool-aged children. Dodge, 24, is a delivery driver for Pine State Beverage and an assistant football coach for Lawrence High School. Maroon joked that Dodge already has “big plans” for their baby to play football.

“It’s already planned out,” she said. “He has a Lawrence Football onesie and everything.”

The couple plans to have more children, but maybe not so soon.

“I did say during labor yesterday, I’m done,” she joked, “but now that he’s here I can see us having another.”

The new family hopes the arrival of Jesse will start their New Year off right.

“We’re excited to see what the next year brings,” Maroon said. “I’m wishful everything will go right and COVID won’t close too many things… We are trying to be the best parents we can be and just experience Jesse and hope to make him into the greatest little baby ever.”

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