Dennington's Danielle Missen and Nathan Martin welcome baby Amelia on New Year's Day

The birth of their first child Amelia Jade Valentine Martin at 2.20am on January 1 was the cherry on top of a milestone year for the pair who'd just married, celebrated both their birthdays and had their 10-year anniversary.

The pair was settling down to watch the fireworks in Port Fairy when the race they would never forget began.

"We were at the hospital close to midnight and my partner Nathan said 'you gotta have her in the next 15 minutes for her to be the first baby of 2023' and I reckon I nearly threw the bed at him at that point," she said.

"I was like, 'don't rush me'."

But two short hours later, their first child was born.

"We are over the moon, we are thrilled - absolutely smitten," Ms Missen said.

"All is well here, we had a pretty straight-forward labour.

"It was just a little bit of a hurry, there wasn't a lot of time between arriving and delivering.

"Honestly, it feels really surreal."

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Her partner Nathan said it all happened so fast.

"The contractions were averaging the 10-minute mark on New Year's Eve," he said.

"We decided we'd go down to the fireworks with family and come back when the contractions got to five minutes.

"By the time we'd gone down the contractions were at three minutes so we went back and when we arrived in Warrnambool they were one-and-a-half minutes.

"When we checked into Warrnambool Base hospital, we got checked and she was three centimetres dilated.

"It was only a couple hours later from that when Danielle started screaming for the epidural, but they told us 'the doctor mightn't get here in time - you're already nine centimetres dilated'.

"Danielle did it all on the gas, she did very well."

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