It’s fair to say to say that for Jenna Lynch, 2022 is going to be a hard year to beat. Starting her dream job as Newshub’s political editor and giving birth to her “amazing, dream baby Alfie” – before going on to win Political Journalist of the Year at the Voyager Media Awards – has undoubtedly been one of the most exciting times of her life.
She just didn’t plan for all these things to happen at the same time!
Tucked into a tiny voice booth in Parliament while chatting to Woman’s Day, the first-time mum says bringing another voter into the world has been much easier than conducting “6am stakeouts” and chasing less-than-accommodating MPs through the Beehive’s corridors.
However, Jenna admits the final weeks of her pregnancy in May weren’t without some drama either.
“I got COVID at 37 weeks – I caught it from my baby shower – but the silver lining was we did an extra scan and blood tests, which discovered that I had pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes,” recalls
the 34-year-old.
Alfred Douglas Ketels
Born 15 May 2022
Weight 4.8kg
Pre-eclampsia can lead to dangerously high blood pressure, and Jenna had a feeling the condition was brewing after becoming increasingly puffy in the face, hands and ankles.
She explains, “I was partly thinking, perhaps this is just how big you get when you’re pregnant. So once we figured out what was going on and that we needed to induce labour, I turned to my partner and said through tears, ‘Can you call my mum and tell her to come up?’
“I was lucky that mum flew in really quickly from Dunedin as it ended up being a heck of a rush to the finish line, but Alfie arrived safe and sound, and that was the main thing.”
Weighing in at just over four kilograms, blue-eyed Alfie was born at Wellington Hospital at 11.15am, a few days before his due date.
Smitten, Jenna and fiancé Andrew Ketels felt an instant connection with their baby son.
“We love him so much – he’s an utter delight and has been the smiliest baby from day dot,” gushes Jenna. “He’s got the most expressive little face.”
After six years on the political beat, Jenna was used to surviving on three hours’ sleep with the fast-paced nature of her job and travelling the globe alongside ministers.
Andrew and Jenna’s wedding plans were put on hold for Alfie’s arrival. “We have to start planning from scratch.”
She was quietly confident this prepared her somewhat for the exhaustion that lay ahead with a newborn.
“Nothing could have prepared me,” she laughs. “I thought I was going to be super-prepared. I had gone on missions with the Prime Minister to the UN and literally done live crosses at 2am, then had to be up again at 6am, so I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll be fine. I can deal with sleep deprivation.’
“But nothing prepares you for it. Although we were very lucky with Alfie as a newborn because he was a really good sleeper. I was trying not to feel smug – up until he was four months old!
“As soon as I went back to work, when he was 18 weeks old, it all fell apart, which was really, really hard. Trying to have your brain functioning at full capacity on such little sleep was just mind-blowingly difficult. Thankfully, I have a really supportive team, especially [political reporter] Amelia Wade, who picked up a lot of slack for me.”
“He’s been the smiliest baby from day dot,” says the doting mum.
When Jenna finished her maternity leave, Andrew, 38, who works as chief of staff for the Act Party, took over as Alfie’s primary caregiver. He would bring Alfie to the Press Gallery several times a day – only a five-minute walk from the couple’s Thorndon home – so Jenna could continue breastfeeding him in Parliament’s parents’ room.
And how did Andrew find being a stay-at-home father?
“It was a massive shock to the system,” Jenna says with a wry smile. “Andrew was under the impression that he might be able to work part-time while looking after a baby, which he very quickly discovered was not the case.
“Parliament is much more family-friendly now, so when Andrew needs to go somewhere, he quite often drops Alfie to me at Parliament, where all the aunties of the office take turns cuddling him.
“It’s really lovely, actually. We’ve got such a great crew here. If I need to pop up and do a piece-to-camera or go live, the other guys in the office will grab Alfie and look after him while I do that.”
Beehive bub Alfie’s crawling his way to the top.
Now that their gorgeous bub is eight months old, he is “very much on the move”, loving the taste of strawberries and solely focused on pulling out every single book from the shelf every single day.
“I thought I had a little bit more time to baby-proof the house,” shares Jenna, “but he’s figured out how to stand himself up and is very determined to get into everything. We’re also just settling him in at daycare this week, which has been a little emotional for us, but not for him – he’s loving it. He’s a little social butterfly and loves interacting with the other babies, and pulling every single toy out before putting them into his mouth.”
With Jenna eagerly looking forward to this year’s election, she is also devising a loose plan on how to juggle parenthood with the intense six-week television coverage. For that time, their little family will likely relocate up to Auckland, where Andrew’s whānau is also based.
“I have excited nerves about it, but I love election year – it’s my favourite,” admits Jenna, who joined Three in 2014 from the Waikato Times and has worked as a political reporter for Newshub since 2016. “It’s what I live and breathe for.”
Jenna was a trooper throughout her pregnancy.
Raised in Alexandra, she took over the role as political editor in January from Tova O’Brien, who is now a radio host for Today FM. The pair had worked closely for a very long time – “during lockdowns, it felt like we were flatting together in Parliament as the only two in our office” – and Jenna says Tova has taught her a lot, especially when it comes to ignoring nasty trolls.
Jenna tried to keep this in mind when her journalistic integrity was called into question recently, when she was accused of political bias in a Twitter stoush due to Andrew’s job. She says it’s absurd to suggest the man she loves can control her career, her reporting and her poll results.
“It’s funny that this issue of Andrew and I has come up now because we’ve been together for years and years – we’ve never hidden it,” muses the broadcaster. “I think any suggestion that he can influence anything I do is just laughable because he can’t. Andrew can’t even make me do the dishes!
The busy family will be relocating to Auckland for the election.
“Wellington is such a small place. Parliament is such a small place. So it was probably inevitable that I would end up with someone here. But Andrew doesn’t know what I’m working on, and I certainly don’t know the ins and outs of what he does in his job. We respect each other enough to know there is a line we don’t cross.”
Jenna and Andrew first met at a birthday party for a mutual friend. He was working for former National MP Maggie Barry at the time and they hit it off talking about politics. The pair then got engaged in 2019, while Jenna was covering the Prime Minister’s trip to the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
“Andrew flew over to meet me and arranged a picnic in Central Park, where he proposed very boldly without a ring,” she smiles. “Actually, it was probably a smart move because I’m quite particular.
“We’ve since had a couple of failed attempts at getting married during the pandemic. Our initial wedding date was planned for February 2021, but when we went into lockdown, we put it on hold, then it got derailed by me becoming pregnant, so we have to start planning from scratch again.”
For now, the couple is relishing their time together this summer before the start of what will be a “hectic” work year ahead. Their favourite thing is to take Alfie and their Yorkie poodle Winston for a walk to a local café for a weekend brunch.
Alfie already has an ally in pup Winston!
“We got Winston during the 2017 election coalition negotiations,” laughs Jenna. “I had been pacing around a very small area at Bowen House, waiting outside the lifts for Winston Peters to make his decision for a very long time, and I went mad and got a dog. I don’t know whether we have regrets about his name or not!”
While motherhood has put her busy work life into perspective – “I’ve learnt I can’t do everything from dawn to dusk any more” – Jenna describes still getting a special feeling walking up Parliament steps each morning.
“That’s when the gravity of what I’m doing for the day hits me,” she shares. “The place is immense. The building itself has this mana about it. And being able to play a role in democracy like that is such an enormous responsibility and privilege. I’ll be here as long as they will have me. I’m only just getting started.”
