Chilliwack’s 2025 New Year’s baby may have been born more than 15 hours in on Jan. 1, but he came “fast and furious,” according to his mother.
The baby was already past his Dec. 27 due date, but both Janessa and Kyle Mueller admit the days and hours leading up to the birth of their second child were pretty calm.
Janessa went to a yoga class on the morning of Dec. 31. Her water began to break later that day, but she was not in labour yet, so she went to the maternity ward at Chilliwack General Hospital (CGH) alone to get checked out around dinner time as Kyle stayed home with two-year-old Malek.
She was told to come back later when she went into labour, but if she was still not in labour by 7:30 a.m. the next day she should return to be induced.
Janessa and Kyle rung in the new year together and went to bed. She woke up around 3 a.m. with cramps, but it was nothing major.
Hours later, Malek went off with his grandmother as Kyle and Janessa went to the hospital at 7:30 a.m. They gave her some medication to start induction and sent her home again, telling her to come back for her next pill in four hours.
The two went back home where Kyle made breakfast and they watched a TV show.
“It was really, weirdly chill,” he said.
They returned to the maternity ward at lunchtime where she was given a second pill and then sent her home for a third time. She was to come back when she was having six contractions in 10 minutes.
As they were driving home down Evans Road around 1 p.m., she had five contractions in six minutes.
“We’re progressing pretty quick now,” Kyle recalled saying to her.
“It’s fine. Maybe it’ll slow down,” she replied.
Janessa is a nurse at CGH, so she downplays any sort of medical issue that may be happening, Kyle added. She decided to stay at home, lie down on the couch and have another snack.
“I thought, we’ll just stay home as long as we can,” Janessa said.
But things were starting to move more quickly.
About three or four times, Kyle insisted they go back to the hospital. Janessa finally agreed. She went to the washroom before leaving and that’s when her water fully broke.
“I said, ‘OK, yes, let’s go back,’” she said with a laugh.
Back they went to CGH.
“It was progressing heavily as I was driving,” Kyle said. “I thought we were going to have to pull over on Evans Road.”
Janessa found the drive comical, but also slightly painful as her husband wondered if he should pull over or not and asked "what is the protocol here?" as her contractions were coming faster.
"I'm just laughing and I'm crying because it hurt to laugh while I'm having contractions."
When they arrived at the hospital around 2:30 p.m., she was surprised to find out she was only three centimetres dilated. Janessa was given morphine, Gravol, and had a hot shower.
“It was definitely ramping up. Every minute was a contraction,” Kyle recalled.
As she got out of the shower she started to yell and scream.
“I said ‘It’s happening. I’m pushing.’”
A nurse calmly came into the room to see how things were going. She saw the baby was coming, sprang into action, and hit the call button.
“Then a whole team of five people came running in and literally within four minutes he was born,” Kyle said.
About an hour after arriving at the hospital (for the fourth time in 22 hours) Janessa gave birth to Odin Bobby Mueller at 3:37 p.m., weighing nine pounds, 10 ounces.
“Fast and furious, here he came,” Janessa said.
“It was crazy fast,” Kyle added. “It was pretty wild.”
He said the doctors were “late to the party” as they arrived minutes after the baby did.
Regardless, both parents called the hospital staff “awesome,” “amazing,” and “phenomenal.”
Odin's middle name, Bobby, is in memory of Kyle’s father, a former Chilliwack firefighter who died in July 2024.
“My dad’s name is Eric Mueller, but growing up his nickname was Bobby, so we thought that was fitting.”
