Trudeau interview induced good things
Politicians get the blame AND the credit for a lot of things, sometimes undeservedly so on both counts, and journalists are often the ones doing the blaming and crediting, usually blaming.
But I’m not sure our prime minister has ever before had ascribed to him responsibility for the early onset of a labour that produced the identical twin boys of a journalist, one who had just interviewed him.
Suzanne Zandbergen doesn’t really want to lay that all on Justin Trudeau’s doorstep, but it has become part, a jocular part, of the Zandbergen unofficial family lore.
And whatever the cause of her sister Rebecca’s sudden labour symptoms, scant hours af-
ter Rebecca had interviewed the man who lives at 24 Sussex Drive, the result remains the same.
Rebecca has two beautiful twins. And aunt Suzanne now has not one but three nephews born on January 12. (Previously, Suzanne’s nephew Spencer, now 16, son of her sisterin-law Dusty, was born Jan. 12.)
It makes it all nicely tidy and simple, because Suzanne herself has a birthday on, of course, Jan. 12.
So let’s lay out the field of play for a minute so we know where we are here.
Suzanne and her husband Marty Edwards, who both used to work at The Spectator (we miss you), own a successful social media company in Hamilton, The Generator. With a network of 125,000 plus people, it helps businesses manage and enhance their presence on online platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
The Zandbergens, it seems, are that kind of the family. Suzanne has a brother, Nelson, 47, who runs a website, nationvalleynews.com, serving the Ottawa Valley and eastern Ontario. Brother Scott, 45, is head of products for Intuit QuickBooks.
So they have a pretty solid grounding in the media and online world.
Rebecca, Suzanne’s younger sister, is perhaps the highest profile of them all. She is the CBC morning radio show “London Morning” host in London, Ontario. As such she interviewed Justin Trudeau, live, the morning of January 11.
“Our family has a Facebook chat,” says Suzanne, “and my brothers were giving her a (teasingly) hard time on it about what questions to ask him.” They wanted her to go after him on all the hot national topics, and Rebecca had to remind them that “London Morning” is a “hyper local” show and questions would be tailored to reflect that.
“She (Rebecca) was a bit nervous, a bit stressed, I think,” Suzanne tells me. “It was a pretty big thing.” But Rebecca is a seasoned journalist, who has worked everywhere from South Africa and Rwanda to Iqaluit and, just prior to London, Kelowna, B.C. She has also taught journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa.
So she got through it fine. But a few hours after the interview she could feel the labour coming on. She went to the hospital. Because she was only at 31 weeks, the staff kept her there and tried to delay the surgical birth as long as possible — Rebecca already knew it would be a caesarean. “They told me, ‘You’re not going anywhere until these babies are born,” says Rebecca.
At 3:40 the next morning, a little over a week ago, the twins arrived, weighing about three and half pounds each, early ... and healthy. Also nameless, for the next several days.
“They (Rebecca and husband Drew Pihlainen) thought they had more time,” says Suzanne. “They just named them a couple of days ago. Aito and Piet.”
Everyone’s doing well, but they’re still not going anywhere, even though the babies are born, at least for another few days. Because the boys were premature, they’re still in neonatal.
“Everyone’s doing well,” says Rebecca. “Trying to gain weight.”
Rebecca and Drew also have a 2year-old daughter, Joan.
And whatever their political differences, the Zandbergen family — brothers, sisters, parents Richard and Yetti — can all agree on these two new “issues,” Aito and Piet. They make them proud.
Moreover, Jan. 12 has tripled in importance for them; it’s not just Suzanne’s birthday anymore, and she’s happy to share it.
“The twins were a nice birthday present for me,” she says, in a proud aunt kind of way.