New Zealand MP Julie Anne Genter cycles to hospital while in labour

New Zealand MP Julie Anne Genter cycles to hospital while in labour

Genter

New Zealand Greens MP Julie Anne Genter cycled to a hospital in Wellington while she was in labour.

On Sunday morning, at 3.04am, Genter, 41, made the ten minute bike ride from her home to the hospital. She took to Facebook to announce the saga of how she went to hospital to deliver her second child. 

“Big news!” the Greens politician posted on her Facebook page a few hours later. “At 3.04am this morning we welcomed the newest member of our family. I genuinely wasn’t planning to cycle in labour, but it did end up happening.”

“My contractions weren’t that bad when we left at 2am to go to the hospital,” she wrote. “…though they were 2-3 min apart and picking up in intensity by the time we arrived 10 minutes later. (I’m smiling in the car park right after one.) And amazingly now we have a healthy, happy little one sleeping, as is her dad.”

Genter, who entered the NZ parliament in 2011, thanked pregnancy care centre, Anna Driver Birth Services in her media post for their support during her child’s birth. In 2017, she publicly shared her story of her struggles with miscarriage to Women’s Weekly

“I never expected we’d have any problem getting pregnant  in fact, I didn’t,” she said.

“But I lost the pregnancy very early on. And then the next one at eight weeks. We tried for another year after that, but nothing happened.”

“I’m quite a rational person and thought I could tell myself it simply wasn’t meant to be, but I was surprised at how intensely powerful my emotions were around the pregnancies and miscarriages. It affected me profoundly. It was upsetting and very sad for both of us.”

“Maybe we don’t mention it because we don’t want other people to feel the sadness, but how else will women know how common it is and how will other people know what you’re going through?”

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