Baby born in Britomart Station
Auckland’s busiest train station has been boasting about better arrival times, but no-one expected this passenger to arrive early.
Baby Olivia Wackrow was born on November 5 at about 4pm at Britomart Station after her mother, Emma Wackrow, went into early labour inside a cubicle in the transport centre’s women’s toilets.
The Avondale residents had arrived in the CBD by train and were walking up Albert St to meet friends for dinner.
That’s when Emma started to feel very uncomfortable.
‘‘The baby was really moving a lot, it was quite painful,’’ Emma said.
‘‘But I didn’t really think anything of it because she had been doing this for a couple of weeks, then over the next 20 minutes it kept happening, and I thought ‘this is unusual’.’’
The Wackrow family decided to head back to Britomart to take the next train home.
Upon arriving at the station, Emma had an overwhelming urge to use the toilet.
‘‘The whole thing happened within a space of 10 minutes, from going into that bathroom to holding her in my arms.
‘‘It’s funny just how the human body knows what to do, instinct kicked in and everything took care of itself really.’’
While in the toilet there was no time for Emma to panic as she was focused on keeping her 2-year-old son Luke calm, she said.
‘‘I didn’t want him to see me in pain. He kept saying ‘are you OK mummy?’
‘‘And I was saying ‘yeah mummy is fine, mummy’s just got a sore tummy’.’’
Even with all the commotion inside of the bathroom, commuters surprisingly continued to enter it and use the toilets, she said.
‘‘The worse thing was they kept using the hand dryer and Luke is really scared of it, so I screamed ‘stop using the hand dryer you’re scaring the toddler’.’’
Emma’s husband Martin Wackrow said the situation was very intense and a lot happened really quickly.
Auckland Transport spokesman Mark Hannan said this was the first baby to be born inside of Britomart Station.
The Wackrow family would be receiving an AT HOP card with $100 on it to thank them for their support for public transport, Hannan said.