As New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern tried to negotiate her new job, she secretly had to struggle with another problem: morning sickness.
"It's just what ladies do", she said on Friday when asked how she dealt with it.
Ms Ardern has announced she and her partner, Kiwi television presenter Clarke Gayford, are expecting a baby in June.
In what she called an "unusual" press conference, the 37-year-old described in detail how she found out and how she dealt with it afterward.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, center left, embraces her partner Clarke Gayford after speaking to well-wishers. Source: AAP
Ms Ardern said she received the news on October 13, in the midst of negotiations over who would form the new government, but kept it quiet - common in the early stages of pregnancy.
"Let's just say I was not feeling well," she said, adding her morning sickness had lasted into the early weeks of the government.
The news also came as a "surprise" - the couple had been told they needed help conceiving and had put their plans on hold when Ms Ardern was promoted to Labour leader in August.
"I am a human. Whose mind wouldn't it play on?" she said when asked if it the news weighed on her in the middle of the intense negotiations.
Asked why she had chosen Friday for the announcement, Ms Ardern, said: "There's only so long you can say you've been eating too many Christmas pies."
She is not the first world leader to be pregnant. Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto caused a political stir with her second pregnancy in 1990.
Share
