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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast

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Speaker 1: from News Talks at b And.

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Speaker 2: In the end, it was just over an hour, just

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Speaker 2: over an hour between being asleep on the floor of

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Speaker 2: Auckland Hospital to standing bewildered under the delivery sweet lights

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Speaker 2: helping to dress my newborn son. Marv had been induced

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Speaker 2: on Sunday. The scans had suggested that all was okay,

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Speaker 2: but that our baby was a wee bit small for

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Speaker 2: his gestational age, and we spent an oddly serene day

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Speaker 2: waiting for the induction medication to kick in. You know,

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Speaker 2: they give you a like a dose of the stuff

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Speaker 2: every two hours until you go into labor, but sometimes

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Speaker 2: it takes a few hours to work, and sometimes it

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Speaker 2: can take days. It was actually it was weird. It

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Speaker 2: was kind of lovely in a way. Marv and I

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Speaker 2: just had a really chill day. We both read for

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Speaker 2: hours in between the doses. We went for coffee, we

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Speaker 2: went for a stroll in the domain Marva com instantly

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Speaker 2: assessing babies every shift and every hint of a contraction.

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Speaker 2: My goodness, though when it happened, it happened zero to

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Speaker 2: one hundred a blur. I won't I won't labor you

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Speaker 2: sing with all the details. But well, it's become clear

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Speaker 2: to me that there is a reason every parent has

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Speaker 2: a birth story. It was just it was surreal. It

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Speaker 2: felt like a week's worth of crazy experiences happened in

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Speaker 2: the space of about fifteen minutes.

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Speaker 3: It was beautiful, it was it was violent, it was

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Speaker 3: it was wild, it was it was traumatic, it was thrilling,

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Speaker 3: it was it was animal, It was all these, all

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Speaker 3: these different things.

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Speaker 2: Marve was incredible, she was amazing. I felt so proud

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Speaker 2: of her and yet so helpless at the same time.

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Speaker 2: And weirdly, through it all, I felt kind of calm.

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Speaker 2: I'm not bragging about that. I'm not saying that calmness

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Speaker 2: was a good response. Honestly, I was probably just a

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Speaker 2: bit stunned. And it turned out that our son was too.

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Speaker 2: When he came out, they had to hurry him off

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Speaker 2: and chuck him on the oxygen, and he regained his

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Speaker 2: color soon enough. I kind of took my cues from

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Speaker 2: the from our amazing midwife and from the other hospital

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Speaker 2: staff who were standing around. They weren't freaking out too much,

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Speaker 2: and so I didn't either. The scans were write our

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Speaker 2: son was small, for his gestational age about five and

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Speaker 2: a half pounds, so two and a half kges at

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Speaker 2: a turn baby. But what he lacked in size he

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Speaker 2: made up for in his capacity to feed. Once he

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Speaker 2: joined us. There can be no doubt he has inherited

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Speaker 2: my skin tone, my hair color, and my appetite. This

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Speaker 2: morning is the longest that I've been away from him

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Speaker 2: in his life, but at five days old, I know

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Speaker 2: him well enough to know that right now he is

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Speaker 2: probably feeding. And isn't it amazing how instinct works out

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Speaker 2: of the womb, almost totally blind, and yet he absolutely

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Speaker 2: throws himself at the boob, head back, mouth wide latch.

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Speaker 2: Who taught him that? Okay, I've got a few random

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Speaker 2: takeaways from the week. Number one the placenta. Wow, I

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Speaker 2: mean that thing could feed a family, for my goodness.

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Speaker 2: Number two, we had three nights in hospital and a

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Speaker 2: couple more in birthcare afterwards. And if our experience of

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Speaker 2: the New Zealand healthcare system this week has anything to

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Speaker 2: go by, it is being almost completely held together by

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Speaker 2: migrant workers, Indian people, Filipinos, Europeans, South Americans, pacifica. They

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Speaker 2: were fantastic and for all the justified concerns over the

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Speaker 2: healthcare system as a whole. We had a really positive

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Speaker 2: experience and just felt so grateful, so grateful to the

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Speaker 2: people who were working in what can often be very

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Speaker 2: tricky conditions. And my number three takeaway women's bodies. Oh

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Speaker 2: my goodness. I mean men might think, oh, we can

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Speaker 2: run a bit faster, or we can jump a bit higher,

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Speaker 2: but honestly, women's bodies to have the capacity to grow

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Speaker 2: an entire human being from his skinny little frog legs

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Speaker 2: folded up to his belly, to his tiny little fingernails,

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Speaker 2: to the lightest fur on his pink little cheeks, to

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Speaker 2: grow him, birth him, and then, having done it all,

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Speaker 2: having done everything, to immediately switch to nourishing him day

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Speaker 2: and night, hour after hour after hour. What can I

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Speaker 2: tell you about our son? Well, I think he's got

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Speaker 2: his mum's eyes. He sucks his thumb. His first music

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Speaker 2: was the Coln Concert and he made sure to stay

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Speaker 2: up to watch Will Young and Tom Latham score centuries

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Speaker 2: against Pakistan. His name is going to be finalized soon enough,

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Speaker 2: and when he's bulked up a bit, he's got a

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Speaker 2: long list of visitors waiting to meet him too. After

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Speaker 2: five nights away yesterday, I put our son in his

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Speaker 2: car seat and drove him home. His older brother ran

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Speaker 2: home from school and cuddled him on the couch. Through

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Speaker 2: the madness and exhaustion of the week, running on caffeine,

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Speaker 2: sugar and love. We sat there together, a family, and

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Speaker 2: it was perfect.

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Speaker 1: For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live

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Speaker 1: to newstalks ' b from nine am Saturday, or follow

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Speaker 1: the podcast on iHeartRadio.