First-time mom Kelli Cooper is thrilled to have given birth to Williams Lake's first baby of 2017, little Kingzley Ronnie Klifford Cooper.
"I think it's cool," Kelli said of her son's birthday, as she looked at him sleeping soundly in a crib at Cariboo Memorial Hospital on Wrestling Day. "I always thought he'd be a New Year's baby."
Kingzley was born at the hospital Jan. 1 at 9:20 p.m. weighing eight pounds and five ounces.
With a due date of Jan. 4, Kelli was initially planning on spending New Year's Eve at her Tl'etinqox home at Anaham, about an hour's drive from Williams Lake, with family. However, Kelli and her doctors decided to induce her early due to concerns over high blood pressure.
"I was okay with it. We were only four days from the due date so I said sure," she said, adding that her brothers and other men in the family took over cooking the already-planned turkey dinner while Kelli and her mom, Charlotte Frank, and other women in the family headed to the hospital for the delivery.
Kelli said she is looking forward to watching her son grow up, and for him to be a part of her large extended family.
"Hopefully he'll get into sports," she said. "We have lots of boys in the family."
Little Kingzley also shares his special birth date with his cousin,12-year-old Keisha Cooper, who is also a New Year's baby. Keisha was one of the many excited family members on hand at the hospital to visit the new baby.