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From fainting spells to panicked drives to the hospital, check out how these famous Kiwi dads handled their delivery room drama.
When it comes to the nitty-gritty of childbirth, all the hard work obviously falls to the mums – but an encouraging, supportive birth partner plays an important role, too.
So, with former Bachelor Art Green and Westside actor Dan Musgrove both about to become fathers this year, we check out how some of their fellow famous Kiwi dads have handled their own delivery room experience.
The Hits broadcaster Sam Wallace and his partner Sarah Bowman welcomed their first son, Brando, a couple of months ago – but their boy's birth wasn't without commotion.
With Bowman enduring 20 hours of contractions, the experience apparently took its toll on Wallace, too.
He told his fellow Hits co-hosts that a "smell of flesh", seeing Bowman in distress and a lack of food or sleep led to a wee fainting spell on his part.
"I stand up and all I see is a blue fuzz," Wallace said of the experience. "I do a zombie walk with my hands out in front of me and then the nurse knows exactly what's happening and catches me and lowers me to the ground, grabs my phone and takes a photograph!"
Because you know what they say – photos or it didn't happen.
TVNZ star Matt Chisholm missed the birth of his first son, Bede, due to filming overseas for his show, Survivor NZ.
But the broadcaster was there to support his wife Ellen at North Shore Hospital when the time came to deliver their second boy, Finn – and it sounds like he played the perfect supportive husband.
Ellen later told Woman's Day: "I delivered Finn completely drug-free, which is what I wanted, and Matt was there rubbing my back the entire time. And even though I might've snapped at him once or twice, I couldn't have asked for a better birthing partner."
Matt also told the magazine about the overwhelming emotion of seeing his wife give birth.
"Through teary eyes, I said 'You can have anything, anything you want – just name it.'"
So what exactly did Ellen ask for?
A chicken and mayo sandwich.
View this post on InstagramExploiting my children again. #BabyFinn @womansdaynz
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Broadcaster Tim Wilson and his wife Rachel are the proud parents of three rambunctious boys – and according to Rachel, Tim's a solid birth partner.
She endured a 35-hour labour with her first boy, Roman, but Rachel says her husband helped where he could, including timing her contractions and mopping her brow.
Actor and writer Millen Baird relied on a few solid rugby terms to "help" his wife, fellow actor Siobhan Marshall, through a traumatic birthing experience.
The couple were living in Los Angeles when their baby daughter Remy arrived ahead of schedule. Marshall was rushed to hospital after a routine check-up found she was suffering from life-threatening pre-eclampsia.
"The nurses were very professional, but we found out later that they were freaking out because it was really bad and it can kill you," Marshall told Woman's Day.
"Fortunately, they caught it early enough, but the only way to treat it is to have the baby, so they induced me right then and there. It was suddenly all go and we didn't have any of the things we'd packed for the hospital."
While Marshall says her husband was "a really good coach" during the birth, he says he "was no help at all".
"I was just using rugby terms, like, 'Drive it!' which made [Siobhan] burst out laughing. I felt pretty helpless because I could see the concern on the nurses' faces, but Vorny was a machine.
"When I saw that little head pop out, I was in shock. I hadn't really processed it. The whole room turned into this blur of psychedelic colours."
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All Black Ardie Savea and his wife Saskia had an especially emotional time during the birth of their daughter, Kobe.
After 18 hours of labour, the couple had their baby whisked away to intensive care.
"I watch movies and babies come out crying, but [Kobe] wasn't," Ardie told Woman's Day.
"She took longer than average to start breathing, so they rushed her away and I was thinking, 'Oh no.' They got her breathing, then she was in ICU for three nights with tubes in her so they could monitor her. The toughest part was that we couldn't hold her for the first two days.
"When I did get to hold her, I got emotional looking at her and thinking, 'Wow, that's me. I created her with Sas.' I shed a few tears and gave her heaps of kisses. It was one of the best moments of my life and tops any rugby victories."
Actor Ben Barrington says he had real fears his daughter Harley would be born on the side of the road.
When his fiancée Kristie Fergus went into labour, her contractions suddenly came thick and fast.
"Kristie went into crippling labour and we basically had to drive in our little Toyota Corolla with her in the back – screaming like she was being burnt alive – from New Lynn to Waitakere Hospital in afternoon traffic," Barrington told TV Guide.
"I was like, 'I am going to have to hold the horn down and drive down the middle of the road,' but I thought, 'No, because I'll end up running somebody over.'"
The couple made it to the hospital just in time, with their baby girl Harley arriving 15 minutes after they got to the delivery room.
View this post on InstagramTwo peas in a pod🐣🐥#fathersday
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Black Cap Martin Guptill and his wife, broadcaster Laura McGoldrick, also had a baby girl named Harley – and their experience also wasn't without some drama.
When the birth didn't progress as they'd hoped, McGoldrick was told she needed to have an emergency c-section. She later described "freaking out" as she was prepped for surgery.
"It gave me a fright because I wasn't prepared for it," she told Woman's Day.
Her husband, meanwhile, tried to keep his composure in the operating theatre.
"I tried to stay calm because Laura was panicking," Guptill said. "I just tried to tell her it was going to be all right. It did fall on deaf ears a little bit."
But the message must have got through.
"I'm lucky he was so calm," McGoldrick said. "I couldn't have coped otherwise."
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