Nearly four months after Jacinda Ardern announced to step down from the post of New Zealand Prime Ministership, the leader recalled how she left hope of becoming a mother after a series of failed In vitro fertilization (IVF) rounds.
During her valedictory speech to Parliament in Wellington on Wednesday, Ardern said she and her fiance Clarke Gayford thought they couldn’t have children after a failed round of procedures used to help with fertility or prevent genetic problems and assist with the conception of a child.
“Rather than process that, I campaigned to become prime minister,” she joked. “A rather good distraction as far as they go,” she added.
During her speech, she revealed an emotional moment when the couple came to know that Ardern was pregnant. “Imagine my surprise when a couple of months later, I discovered I was pregnant,” she said.
Ardern became just the second elected world leader to give birth while holding office after she and Gayford had a daughter Neve in 2018.
Recalling the hard days, the 42-year-old leader said she’d navigated a pandemic and a mass shooting during her tumultuous five-year tenure as prime minister.
While delivering her last speech in the Parliament, Ardern said she was quitting politics knowing that she was the “best mother” that she could be.
She also described how she never thought she was meant to have the role of prime minister, and how it came about through a surprising chain of events.
While she couldn’t control how her tenure would be defined by others, Ardern said, she hoped it had demonstrated something else.
“That you can be anxious, sensitive, kind and wear your heart on your sleeve,” she said. “You can be a mother, or not, you can be an ex-Mormon, or not, you can be a nerd, a crier, a hugger, you can be all of these things, and not only can you be here, you can lead, just like me.”
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