THEBACHA/FORT SMITH
New Year's Eve is generally a time of celebration. For one Fort Smith couple, there was some extra excitement as they rang in 2017.

Oltin James Colosimo-Cumming was born in Fort Smith at 2:54 a.m. on Jan. 1. He is believed to be the first baby born in the NWT in 2017. - photo courtesy of Janelle Cumming

Resident Janelle Cumming, who was due to give birth to a baby girl on Jan. 10, delivered what is believed to be the first baby born in the NWT this year.

But it wasn't a girl at all.

"He's a boy," Cumming laughed, explaining that she and the baby's father James Colosimo have already filled their house with pink blankets, clothes and "everything" for the baby they expected to name Sophie.

Instead, Cumming gave birth to seven-pound, seven-ounce Oltin James Colosimo-Cumming at 2:54 a.m. on Jan. 1 at the Fort Smith Health Centre.

"I was surprised. I didn't think that I would have had him on new year's," Cumming said. "And when the midwives told me they'd called Inuvik, Yellowknife, Hay River and they didn't have a new year's baby yet, I thought 'Oh wow!'"

Cumming said she had been in the hospital the night before after starting to get contractions, but went home the next morning because she'd started feeling better.

When she went back to the health centre on New Year's Eve for her next checkup, her contractions started getting stronger, she said.

A few hours later, baby Oltin was born.

Cumming said the couple had been out celebrating New Year's Eve by watching a fireworks show in the community and had been planning to watch movies that night.

"That didn't happen," she said.

Nonetheless, it was a new year's filled with "joy, excitement, surprise," she said.