Like a plot off Shorty! 'OUR SON'S DRAMATIC BIRTH'

Faced with a speedy delivery, Amelia and Shadon took control

- Catherine Milford

It’s a beautiful spring day when the Weekly meets Amelia Reid-Meredith and her husband Shadon in their Auckland home. Rudi, 14 months, has awoken, slowly evolving from sleepy-baby mode to full-on star of the show. Eight-year-old Arlo will be home from school soon and the family’s four-year-old vizsla, Blue, is racing happily around the garden.

Rudi is a happy, boisterous boy, squealing in delight as he toddles, rather unstably, between adults, endeavouring to grasp everything in sight, from his apple slice to everyone’s mobile phones.

After Arlo, there was no strategic plan for when the time was right for number two. “We’d been talking about it because we wanted a sibling for Arlo,” explains Samoan-born Shadon, 37.

“As an actress, it can be a hard decision to take time out, but lockdown put everything in perspective,” adds former Shortland Street star Amelia, 37. “We’d been joking about wanting a Fire sign, as Shadon is Air, I’m Earth and Arlo’s Water. We talked loosely about when I’d be ovulating – and it happened. We sort of manifested him!”

The family has moved several times since Arlo’s birth. They lived in Nelson for nine months after Amelia’s beloved mum Robyn died after a battle with bowel cancer in May 2017, then moved to Orātia for another couple of years. They planned to move to Sydney in 2020, but Covid put paid to that. After two years on Waiheke Island, the pair finally settled in Auckland in May 2021, when Amelia was seven months pregnant with Rudi.

“He was very active when I was pregnant,” she recalls. “He’d always kick at night, which is funny because he still never sleeps!