The 300 millionth American was born on Tuesday morning - but no one's sure who it is. Hector Becerra and David Pierson report
Early Tuesday morning at White Memorial Medical Center in Los Angeles, Gloria Mejia reminded her 18-year-old daughter, Catalina Meza, that she had a chance to make history. If Meza could just push a little harder, her mother told her, the little girl she was about to give birth to had a shot at being the 300 millionth American.
"Andale apurate" - come on, hurry up, Mejia said in Spanish. "Your baby could be the one!" Anareli Meza entered the world at 5.10am - 24 minutes after the moment the US census bureau had estimated the US population would reach 300 million.
"We won!" patients and nurses at White Memorial shouted. Not exactly.
Employing a complex and highly subjected set of calculations, the census bureau had set October 17th at 4.46am Pacific time (12.46pm in Ireland) as the moment the US would cross the milestone.
But census officials stressed Tuesday that the date and time are guesses. Some demographers believe the US hit the number months ago, more likely from someone crossing the border than from a birth in a maternity ward.
The census bureau office in Washington marked the moment in a low-key manner with cake and punch.
In 1967, Life magazine spent months researching who was America's 200 millionth person before settling on Robert Ken Woo Jr, who was born in an Atlanta hospital.
This time around, the census bureau said it had no plans to designate a 300 millionth American - a figure that includes both legal and undocumented residents - and seemed to go out of its way to dampen speculation.
But that didn't stop folks at White Memorial and beyond from celebrating. In New York, officials at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens proclaimed Emmanuel Plata number 300,000,000 - claiming she was born at 7.46am eastern time by caesarean section, precisely the time predicted by the census bureau. The hospital had prepared T-shirts and blankets for the baby and mother with "300 millionth American Baby" printed on them.
"It's not like a census official came and put a sticker on the baby," said Chris Constantino, the executive director of Elmhurst. "We just took the opportunity. We stake our claim to it, but anyone else can too." A few hours after the New York media descended on the Queens medical centre, New York Presbyterian Hospital announced that its doctors had delivered a baby girl at exactly 7.46am.
But Elmhurst - which won a New York commendation for birthing the first baby on New Year's day four of the past seven years - wasn't backing down.
The estimated time of arrival was determined by the rate of growth of the US population. According to the census bureau, there is one birth in the US every seven seconds and one death every 13 seconds. The population grows by one international immigrant every 31 seconds. Under bureau calculations, the population grows by one person every 11 seconds. The population of the United States hit 100 million in 1915. It took 52 years to hit 200 million and just 39 more years to hit 300 million. Demographers say that trend seems to have slowed, so the 400 millionth American may not arrive until around 2050.
President Bush marked the occasion with a statement saying it's "further proof that the American Dream remains as bright and hopeful as ever".
Catalina Meza and her husband Alvaro, 21, did not give the number much thought when they stopped at a clinic across from the hospital Monday afternoon. Catalina said she expected to go home after a checkup, only to find out that she was four centimetres dilated. She checked in to White Memorial Medical Center.
Her mother urged her to press on and deliver her baby, excited about the news coverage.
But Catalina Meza said that in the moments after her baby was born she didn't think much about any number. "My mother told me to hurry. But the truth is, it didn't really matter to me," Catalina Meza said as she nuzzled her baby against her cheek. "I just wanted my baby to be born healthy. And now I'm happy because my daughter is well."