Lions star Bundee Aki shares extraordinary news of wife's road-trip birth hours before Wallabies clash
The New Zealand-born star went eight weeks without seeing his family to commit to the Lions tour, which began with a camp in Portugal.
And while he was away the family grew by one when wife Kayla — by now past her due date — gave birth in a car during a road trip to the hospital in Auckland.
Aki dropped the news in one of the last press conferences of the tour following the Lions' defeat in the final match in Sydney last Saturday.
'I want to enjoy my break, my family time,' he said.
'I haven't seen my family for eight weeks. I have a newborn child who I haven't met yet.
'Credit to my wife. She's a powerful woman, a strong woman. I have to say it to her. If you only knew the story of what happened, it's a funny story in itself.'
Having stunned reporters who might have expected to have found out much sooner, Aki shared how the birth played out.
'It was a good day. I was in the hotel, I knew we were overdue. The missus calls me and she's like 'water hasn't broke but I'm going to the hospital, I'm feeling contractions'.
'I go 'yeah, fair enough'. She goes to the hospital, we're getting ready for the team meeting pre-match, and then she calls me and says she's on the way to the hospital, so I said 'fine, be safe'.
'Five minutes later, she sends a photo, her water broke. I was like 'cool, OK, are you almost there?'
'This is like 30 or 40 minutes away from the hospital, so I said 'you'll be all right, Mum is there'.
'Ten minutes later, she video-calls me and I was like 's***, what's going on?'
'I saw a baby on the video call, so she had it in the car on the way to the hospital. They're both strong and healthy, so happy days.'
Aki came off the bench in the second half to contribute to the Lions' 27-19 win over the Wallabies in Brisbane.
'I knew it was good juju so I knew we were going to have a good day,' he said.
The newborn is named Aine, joining sisters Armani, Adrianna, Ailbhe and brother Adronicus.
'I'm looking forward to going and meeting her,' Aki said.
Aki debuted in Super Rugby in 2013 before moving to Ireland the following year, representing the country since 2017.
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