Elizabeth Jessie George, 17 months, can’t resist peeking into the playpen where her new brother, Tre Warren George, Port Alberni’s New Year’s Baby of 2014 sleeps. She’s not too sure of this new arrival, who is taking the attention of her mother, Elizabeth Jessie Van Aert. But she smiles anyway.
“She’s very jealous and curious,” says Van Aert. “She’s helpful in that she’ll give me his soother.”
Van Aert returned home on Jan. 2 after giving birth to Tre a bit unexpectedly at West Coast General Hospital on New Year’s Day.
“I was thinking he was going to be a bit overdue,” Van Aert said. “I went to my doctor (Dr. Mike Fouad), he checked me and said I was already three centimetres dilated. That was 10 a.m. He said he was going to (break my water) and I should go into labour that day or the next.”
Van Aert began feeling labour pains at 1:30 p.m. By the time she returned to the hospital at 2:04 p.m., her contractions were less than two minutes apart. Tre was born just over an hour later.
“It was really fast,” Van Aert said. Her daughter Elizabeth was also born quickly, although not quite as fast as Tre.
Tre carries the same initials as his father, Tommy William George. George and Van Aert decided to give Tre his own name rather than calling him Tommy Jr., Van Aert explained. Tre also has a half sister, Lilly Schuyler, 5.
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