Daddy's Girl All Black Ardie's Little Angel

Meet the proud father’s precious wee bundle

- Leena Tailor

Snuggling against her daddy’s tattooed torso, Ardie Savea’s little princess Kobe peacefully poses for intimate Woman’s Day portraits – before cheekily taking a poop on the athlete’s bare bod while nappy-less! Many new fathers might grimace, but the 24-year-old Hurricanes and All Blacks loose forward cracks up, cleans the mess and carries on unfazed.

Such setbacks are easily taken in his stride following an epic 20 months, which have seen Ardie make his test debut with the All Blacks, launch a business, get engaged to Saskia Hartmann-Hechenberger and tackle parenthood.

But for a moment, everything hung in the balance as the couple welcomed their 4.13kg daughter following a gruelling 18-hour labour, only to have her whisked away.

“I watch movies and babies come out crying, but she wasn’t,” recalls Ardie. “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.”

It was after returning from a rugby trip to Brisbane that Ardie found a pregnancy test on the kitchen bench of their Wellington home and Saskia crying in joy.

“It was a special moment because so many guys on the team were becoming new fathers and telling us their stories, so I was so excited,” he recalls proudly.