Smiles and baby cooing and crying lit up the maternity ward at Mills Memorial Hospital early Jan. 2, with the first Terrace baby of the new year.
A little eight-pound girl, Chloe Ivy Annette Bolton was born at 6:45 a.m. to mom Sheena Morris and dad Corey Bolton who live in Terrace.
Sheena was soft-spoken and tired the next day, Jan. 3, but her voice conveyed a warm glow as she talked about her new baby.
“She looks like her dad,” said Morris, cooing to her little girl as she talked on the phone.
Little Chloe was in the running to be born New Year’s Day as Morris was admitted to the hospital in the early afternoon Jan. 1.
But by midnight, Morris was just nine centimetres dilated, and it wasn’t until 6:45 a.m. the next morning that little Chloe was born.
“She’s actually a miracle baby,” said Morris with quiet awe, noting she lost her first baby to a miscarriage. “I only have one tube… my first pregnancy was an ectopic pregnancy (tubal pregnancy) and they had to take my tube out. I was told by the doctors I wasn’t allowed to have babies after I lost my tube,” she said.
But Chloe was born successfully and is the first baby of her parents, both in their 20s, who met in 2015.
Sheena is Wet’suwet’en from Morristown, while Corey is Tsimshian from Kitsumkalum, and they named their little girl after family members.
“Chloe is my mom’s and dad’s names put together,” explained Morris. “Claudia and Joey equals Chloe.”
Annette honours Chloe’s great grandma, Annette Bolton, Morris added, noting that she likes the name Ivy so she throw that in too.
While Chloe was the first baby in Terrace, the New Year’s Baby for B.C. was born nine seconds after midnight on Jan. 1 in Surrey.