By Sahra Kress, Community Midwife, 20 September 2022
As a midwife, I have witnessed amazingly diverse births over the last 18 years, ranging from births in the hinterlands of Papua New Guinea, in the slum hospital of Vanuatu, to grass huts in the Solomon Islands. I have attended births on the linen couches of gorgeous New Zealand homes, in house-trucks, ambulances, or with the urgency of lithotomy beds or operating tables. But the unique and exceptional circumstances of this birth I could never have expected.
It was a strikingly beautiful sunny afternoon. I was looking after my two nephews, three and five years old, and as usual we headed out into nature- our favourite thing to do together. We decided to go to Ngā Manu (A nature reserve near Waikanae, Kāpiti Coast, Aotearoa New Zealand), largely because the three-year-old had been talking for months about the tuatara at Ngā Manu who we saw twice “sitting in his puddle and sticking his tongue out!” Somehow, my nephew just thought this was hysterical and it became a sort of joke each time he saw me.
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