Zion Ebo Zormelo-Kika, Vancouver Island's first-born baby of 2025, came into the world at Victoria General Hospital at 12:07 a.m. on New Year's Day.
“I literally cried,” said the newborn’s mother Stephani Adomako, who gave birth to twins in 2018. “I was overwhelmed with joy, and he was just adorable. I just couldn't hold back my tears.”
Although Adomako noted that it’s “significant” that Zion was born on Jan. 1, she was hoping for a delivery date that would align with her Tuesday birthday.
“The most important thing was for me to have a safe delivery and him being healthy and having no complications,” she said, adding that her and son are in good health.
Adomako and her family moved to Langford from Penticton nine months ago, and Zion's birth is an exciting start to the mother's new Island life.
“We planned for a new beginning by relocating to a new place and trying to figure out our lives, then he just came into the picture,” she said. “It was just perfect timing.”
The 8.3-pound kiddo is among the first of 40,000 babies B.C.'s Ministry of Health predicts will be born across the province this year.
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.
