Days overdue, Jacinda Ardern plays the baby waiting game by working
Four days before her June 17 due date, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern arrived at Auckland City Mission. Photo: Getty
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is playing the maternity waiting game by running the country from home.
On Wednesday, three days after her first baby was due, Ms Ardern was snapped by her partner Clarke Gayford mulling over paperwork on her Auckland couch.
Television fishing show host Mr Gayford, 40, posted the snap on Twitter, with the hashtag “#stillwaiting”.
He warned any aspiring PMs: “Make sure you also have an appetite for reading and reading and reading and reading.”
Anyone with aspirations of being PM, make sure you also have an appetite for reading and reading and reading and reading. #stillwaiting pic.twitter.com/AzwzkYPIKD
— Clarke Gayford (@NZClarke) June 20, 2018
Ms Ardern had said she was willing to be induced – “Yep, out” – if her pregnancy went too far past her June 17 due date.
She’s booked in to give birth at Auckland Hospital, then will announce the news on social media before a formal announcement is released by the Prime Minister’s office.
On June 16, the 37-year-old told NZ media outlet Newshub she had “sort of” packed her bag and was “pretty much” ready to go when the baby was.
“Everything that anyone would think to take – toothbrush, pyjamas, not much more than that,” she said.
“I’ve always heard that you can really overdo it with those bags. I’ve kept mine pretty simple, pretty basic.”
One thing tougher than the packing was deciding on a name for the baby, Ms Ardern said in late May.
“We’ve got a list. It’s not getting any shorter and it has no favourites, so it’s not going well,” she said.
“It’s one of those things where Clarke’s absolutely convinced it will come to us as soon as it arrives. I think we’ll be sleep-deprived and probably angry at each other, so I don’t think that’s the best time to choose.”
Ms Ardern at a June 14 field day. Photo: Getty
When it came to the labour itself, “I’ve been very careful not to buy into this sense of overdramatisation,” Ms Ardern told Newshub.
She said she thought the baby’s arrival would be fast: “Things happen pretty slowly. Well, in some cases. I think I’ll be one of those.”
When the couple leave hospital with their newborn, they will pose briefly for photos and questions from media.
They have asked for privacy after that, “in the weeks set aside to be together after the birth, and during private family moments”.
Still hard at work just before the baby’s birth, Ms Ardern visited the Auckland City Mission on June 13, wore lace-up walking boots and a loose white shirt to chat to locals at an agricultural field day in Hamilton on June 14, and dropped into her electorate office on June 18.
Her plan is to take six weeks of leave after the baby’s arrival, with Winston Peters stepping up as acting prime minister.
The hardest part of her pregnancy, she said, was awful morning sickness that kicked in on October 26, the day she was sworn in as prime minister.
Other tricky parts? Being stopped by “an older man” who wanted a selfie while she was shopping for maternity underwear.
“There have been a couple of meetings where I have been working away, very focused on an issue, and I’ll get a sharp kick in the ribcage,” she said.
Ms Ardern made a point of keeping up her normal routine, driving herself places and cooking her mum’s old recipes. She also “went to our local department store to buy things like maternity jeans that no one else can really do for me”.
The PM told More FM her lack of food cravings had been “deeply disappointing” although she ate “a lot” of salt and vinegar chips in the first trimester, when the baby news was still a secret.
“I actually thought my team would figure something was up when they came in one day and I was reading papers surrounded by packets of salt and vinegar chips.”
The couple, whose first date was on a fishing boat, scored lots of goodies ahead of the baby’s birth, including three pairs of Red Band gumboots, a classic Kiwi outdoor staple.
In lieu of Fieldays tomorrow I'd like to register my first ever 'In my day', because in 'IN MY DAY' we couldn't afford fancy redbands, and always had warehouse knock offs. Yet jnr-to-be has already been given 3 pairs. (ok one pair is handknitted and bloody cute, but still) pic.twitter.com/KK3ZuRWJhy
— Clarke Gayford (@NZClarke) June 13, 2018
One piece of advice Ms Ardern was tired of hearing? “Make sure you get some sleep now, because you won’t get any for the next 20 years,” she told an NZ breakfast radio show.
