It's a girl!

The first baby born in 2025 in the Comox Valley was at the North Island Hospital Comox Valley at 9:32 a.m. Jan. 1, following a full night of labour and an emergency c-section, says dad Dan Chaston. 

Freya Chaston was 7lbs, 2oz and originally had a due date of mid-January, he adds.

"A few things sped that up - the baby was flipping in the belly and was in breech and we came to the hospital on the 29th and 30th, but eventually we came back for a scheduled induction at 7:30 p.m. on Dec. 31."

He said he and mom Carmelle were hoping for an early January birth, as baby Freya has a sister born on Dec. 28 and jokingly added they didn't want the two born on the same day. 

While it was a full, busy night for the couple, Chaston notes the staff and nurses were updating the pair as there was another birth happening in the hospital around the same time, and adds with a laugh they made the night into a "friendly competition." 

Zion Ebo Zormelo-Kika, was Vancouver Island's first-born baby of 2025, and came into the world at Victoria General Hospital at 12:07 a.m. on New Year's Day. This follows the news of the year's first newborn in B.C., who arrived just five minutes before Zion at the Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops.