Diving In Katherine's Labour Of Love

The director was on hand when the ocean lovers gave birth.

- Amy Prebble

Katherine McRae’s documentary Water Baby boasts incredible footage of the first seconds of Mila Trubridge’s life.

Baby Mila arrives under water in a birthing pool, and is tenderly swooped into the arms of her exhausted parents, famous freedivers Sachiko Fukumoto and William Trubridge.

Katherine (57), who directed the short documentary, was ecstatic about capturing the moment on film. “We were all in the room with Sachiko and William, and every time she had a contraction, we rolled the cameras,” she recalls. “Luckily, I had been given this GoPro, so I put that on a clamp in the birth pool and was so thrilled to actually get the shot of the baby coming out in the water!”

Sachiko (37) had originally wanted to give birth in the sea in a nod to the couple’s love of water – William (39) is an 18-time world record holder and current world freediving champion – in either Long Island, Bahamas or Okinawa, Japan, but given her March due date, the sea proved to be too cold. Then, in her native Japan, she struggled to find anyone prepared to let her attempt a water birth at home.

So the couple opted to have the baby in New Zealand, finding midwife Nicole Kinloch in Hawke’s Bay, where William’s parents David and Linda are based.