JAG pregnant

Stuff reports:

Women’s Minister and Green Party co-leadership candidate Julie Anne Genter has announced she is pregnant.

Genter announced on Sunday that she and partner Peter Nunns are expecting a child in August.

The pregnancy did not at all change her intention to stand for co-leader or to carry on as Women’s Minister and associate transport and health minister. …

Genter will be 16 weeks pregnant on Monday, having found out in December.

This is Genter’s third pregnancy – she lost the first two to miscarriages.

“So this has been a surprise – but really welcome and exciting.”

She is planning to take around three months off from Parliamentary duties but just six weeks off her ministerial role. After that her partner Nunns will take on fulltime caregiving.

That’s lovely news for Julie-Anne and her partner – especially after the earlier miscarriages.

There have been pregnant MPs at various times for the last 50 years. Whetu Tirikatene-Sullivan was first in 1970. Later on there was Ruth Richardson, Katherine Rich and Holly Walker. However there does seem to be a record number of MPs at the moment who have either just given birth (Allan and Prime) or will do so this year (Ardern and Genter).

I hope in the future the announcement an MP is pregnant will be so common that it won’t be noteworthy.