New Zealand MP Julie Anne Genter rode her bicycle early on Sunday and went to the hospital. She was already in labor and gave birth an hour later.
“big news!” The Greens politician posted on his Facebook page a few hours later.
“Today at 3.04 a.m. we welcomed the newest member of our family. I wasn’t really planning on cycling into labor, but it was finally happening.”
This island country with a population of 5 million already has a reputation for ordinary politicians.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern famously took maternity leave While in office and brought her three-month-old baby to a UN meeting as she was still breastfeeding.
“My contractions weren’t so bad when we left at 2 a.m. to go to the hospital—though they were 2-3 minutes apart and picked up intensely by the time we arrived 10 minutes later,” Genter wrote.
“Amazingly we now have a healthy, happy sleeping baby, as is his father,” said Genter, a dual New Zealand-American national who was born in Minnesota and moved to the Pacific country in 2006.
Local media said Genter – her party’s spokesperson for transportation issues and whose Facebook profile includes “I love my bicycle” – also hospitalized her in 2018 after giving birth to her first child.