First baby at WMC for 2025 arrives on couple’s anniversary

CASPER, Wyo. — Happy anniversary; it’s a girl!

There were no flowers or fancy dinners for Dalton and Rubi Van Pelt’s second wedding anniversary. Instead, they welcomed their firstborn baby Emery Leonora into their family.

“We got to meet her before anyone else in 2025,” said Dalton on Wednesday.

Emery, weighing in at 7 pounds, 3 ounces, was delivered at 2:38 a.m. at the Banner Wyoming Medical Center on Wednesday, arriving ahead of three other possible contenders. Another baby was delivered later in the morning, and there are possibly two who could arrive before the day is done, according to nurses in the WMC maternity ward.

The family traveled from their Rawlins home to Casper in advance for the delivery, which brought no unusual incidents or surprises. “This was a pretty boring pregnancy the whole way through,” said Rubi.

Rubi said Emery’s name came to her in a dream one night. “I woke up that morning and it was just stuck in my head,” she said. “It took me a while to come around to it,” added Dalton. He warmed to it after writing it out in a text with her middle name, Leonora.

Dalton is a corrections officer at the Wyoming State Penitentiary, and Rubi works at the County Assessor’s Office. They both met at the penitentiary when Rubi worked there in the dental office.

While the pregnancy was non-eventful, their wedding two years back was anything but.

“We got married on Jan. 1, 2023, and there was a horrible blizzard that shut down the Interstate for like five days,” Dalton said. “My dad came down to see us for New Year’s, and so we decided to get married in the middle of the blizzard, standing in a snow drift in Sinclair, Wyo. in front of the Town Hall.”

Future anniversary celebrations might have to take a back seat now that their child shares the date with a birthday.

“It’ll probably be just her birthday for a while,” said Dalton.