ROCK THE BOAT, BABY
Bundle of joy born on Waiheke ferry
Gonzalo Garcia caught his newborn daughter with his own hands aboard the first Waiheke Island ferry yesterday, rushing in the dawn light to paramedics on shore in the city.
The dramatic at-sea delivery occurred just after 7am yesterday as Waiheke Island woman Marina Dinerstein gave birth to their third child, Uma, while on the ferry to Auckland.
Relieved father Garcia recounted to the Herald on Sunday how Dinerstein started having contractions at 3.30am.
“We eventually called the midwife who lived at the bottom end of the island so she got here around 6am,” the 37-year-old landscape gardener said.
However, the first ferry departing Waiheke Island on Saturdays is at 7am so the couple and their midwives had to wait at the ferry terminal for an hour.
“Once aboard it happened so fast. Marina was ready to push so we went into the disabled bathroom on the ferry — they are a little bigger than a normal bathroom — and after a few pushes everything just happened. I got the baby, I caught her with my own hands. It was really awesome.”
Once ashore, an ambulance took the couple to their planned birthing destination at Birthcare Auckland in Parnell. Garcia said both mum and 3.94kg baby Uma were happy, healthy and recuperating.
The pair met on Waiheke Island, after moving separately to New Zealand from Argentina in 2010, and now have three children together.
The birth of their first boy Salo, now 7, was at home on the island. However their second boy Tahiel, 2, was born at Auckland Hospital — on that occasion they successfully made the 40-minute journey from Waiheke in time for the birth.
“We said, ‘okay, we’ve been very lucky. We don’t want to play with the roulette too much’,” Garcia said.