David and Kayla Bajic at home with daughters Harper (left) and Ellie Marie. Photo 250News

Prince George, B.C. – The first baby born in 2016 in Northern B.C. was delivered in Prince George to Kayla and David Bajic.

And it would not be a misstatement to say the arrival of and trip home for little Ellie Marie Bajic was a bit of a whirlwind sequence of events.  First off her folks say mom Kayla went into labour somewhere between 11:30pm and midnight New Year’s Eve and Ellie arrived not even two hours later at 1:25 am.

“Holy smokes,” said this reporter, who was graciously permitted into the Bajic home New Year’s night, “that’s fast!”  “It was fast,” said Kayla, with David adding “Ya we were pretty lucky that it went so quickly.”

So that was 1:25 am when 8-pound, 1-ounce Ellie was born.  And, as David had mentioned over the phone prior to this interview, he and mom and new daughter were back in their home by 11:30 that morning. 

Asked whether that’s the procedure these days Kayla says “I don’t think it is normal but we’re under the care of a midwife as well and so they come to your home, like she could have come today if we wanted her but she’s coming tomorrow morning instead.  But because we have that level of care at home they’re willing to let us go home earlier.”  And being at home suited mom and dad just fine as 2 ½-year-old sister Harper returned from her grandmother’s house to take it all in.

What’s Harper’s reaction?  Dad says “she’s still getting used to it.  She was really interested when we brought her in the door and she was like “Oh this is baby”, and then she turned around and went and played with her toys.”  “She’s taken a couple of pictures holding Ellie now too.  She’s got her moments where she’s interested and moments where she’s not.”  “She’s wanting to hold her,” says mom.

As far as his reaction to having the first baby of the New Year born here, David, a civil engineer with a consulting firm in town, says “the main thing was just to make sure that our baby was healthy, right?  And then once we had found out that she was the first born in Prince George we were pretty excited, like that’s pretty exciting news.  And then we found out later that she was the first born in Northern B.C. so it just adds to the excitement.”

Kayla added “We hadn’t really expected it because when we were coming in through the emergency department, they were (saying) like, “It’s really busy up there today, there’s six of you (expectant mothers) that have come in tonight already”.  And so, I didn’t anticipate that she would be the first baby.”

She says they received “a nice gift basket from the Ladies’ Hospital Auxiliary, so that was very lovely of them, with a bunch of diapers and blankets and stuff like that, along with lots of congratulations.  Everybody seems pretty excited to find out who was the first baby.”

And David adds “there’s lots of other attention too because it’s been posted on Twitter and a bunch of different websites already so we’re getting congratulations from people that we haven’t even told yet.”

David also says “we had a really good experience, the hospital staff was great, really accommodating so I don’t think we can give them enough thanks for the support that they gave us there (UHNBC) when we showed up.  We’re really lucky to have had everything go so smoothly.”  

It might seem a little soon to be asking the question but ask I did: “Are you planning on having a larger family?”  With a wry smile Kayla said “I don’t know, we’re going to see what life is like with two, and then go from there.”

For now she is taking a one-year maternity leave from her job as a counsellor with Patient Family Counselling at the Cancer Agency.  “I’ve got a year off, so I go back next December, back to work.  I’m pretty lucky to have a year to spend with them.”

Both David, a DP Todd grad and Kayla, who graduated from PGSS, grew up in Prince George and both have their parents here in town to dote on their beautiful grandchildren.

Happy New Year indeed.