Daughters help deliver mum’s baby
Caroline Naera had planned to give birth in hospital.
But it didn’t quite work out like that.
Instead the Whangãrei woman gave birth standing up and leaning against the drawers in her bedroom while her midwife was on the phone coaching Naera’s 16-year-old daughter Jordana on how to catch her new baby brother.
“It wasn’t the plan we had organised, but it was really special,” Naera said.
On Monday, August 6, Naera gave birth at her Kamo home to a healthy baby boy — no name yet but it will start with a ‘J’ — weighing 7lb 3oz. Jordana caught him, his 8-year-old sister Ariana cut the cord and 4-yearold Anahera got the towels ready.
Naera’s water had broken on the Saturday but she had no pain. She carried on sorting out baby’s stuff — he was due on August 25 — and took Ariana to netball. She went to Whangãrei Hospital for a check up but she was okay.
The next day she still had no pain but was leaking water so went back to the hospital.
Again, baby was okay and her midwife said if the contractions didn’t start naturally they would induce her on the Wednesday, so her family were on stand by. But the contractions did start last Monday.
“The contractions started about 4am but they were really irregular. They started about 9am hard and fast so I couldn’t make the call to go to the hospital. Jordana has her learner licence but it just would’ve been too chaotic to go out during school and work traffic,” she said.
At 9.18am Naera called the midwife, four minutes later baby arrived with Jordana’s help.
When asked if the girls now want to become a nurse or midwife, they said no.