He’s better known for his fast-firing one-liners and self-deprecating humour, but by his own admission, Josh Thomson is also an incredibly emotional man who isn’t afraid to shed a tear or 10.
And that’s exactly what he did when he and wife Liz welcomed their first child, a beautiful baby girl called Soana Ann Rose, in April. It’s a name weighted with so much importance that Josh confesses he has only just been able to utter it out loud.
“It’s my mum’s name and she died about six years ago,” explains Josh, cradling the gurgling two-month-old. “It was a very difficult decision for us to name our child after Mum. She was so good with kids and it’s still so upsetting to me that she won’t meet her granddaughter.
“I suppose it’s still quite raw. I asked my dad and he said it was OK. Yet we kept looking at other names, putting them on our list. But when she was born, I looked at her and I knew she was a little Soana.” Liz smiles in agreement, “She is just a perfect little bundle.”
The couple coo and beam during our Woman’s Day shoot, with Soana already knowing how to work the camera, grinning as the bulbs flash around her and talking in gurgles.
“She’s so good,” beams Liz. “I bet all parents say that, but we feel so lucky.”
And understandably so. The journey to becoming parents hasn’t been an easy one for comedian and actor Josh, 37, and Liz, 36. Back in February, Josh welled up while hosting Three’s current affairs programme The Project, revealing that they’d suffered three miscarriages and that Liz was, in fact, pregnant with their fourth child.
“When we lost the second baby, I was just about to do a live show, and I had to go out and do it anyway. It was rough,” recalls Josh. “That’s nothing in comparison to what Liz was going through. But it can destroy you. So we were really waiting until she was born, until we saw her, to truly believe we had a baby.”
Josh with his former The Project co-hosts Jesse Mulligan and Kanoa Lloyd.
The couple started trying for a child soon after their 2014 wedding, which saw them getting hitched on the farm that Josh grew up on in rural Timaru, surrounded by their friends and family, including his dad David.
They both say their passion for acting is the foundation of their relationship. Liz who’s originally from Dunedin – has also acted on screen and stage, but most recently works in the production side of filming, keeping an eye on continuity.
The couple met in 2006, when Liz walked into an acting class in Auckland and was paired with Josh for a dramatic seduction scene.
“I was blown away by how amazing he was,” she recalls. “He even had all these props.”
But it was Liz who finally bit the bullet and bravely asked out the man she’d become close pals with. Well, kind of.
“I thought I had a good basis for asking him out as he was always rearranging fruit in my fruit bowl when he was over, like the apples and a banana into a penis and balls,” she laughs. “And I thought, ‘He’s so flirting.'”
Josh shakes his head and laughs, “I wasn’t flirting. I was just bored at your house and playing with some fruit. It was not a secret code.”
As first dates go, their’s was perhaps not the most romantic – drunkenly heading to the cinema to watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Josh says, “I didn’t know it was a date. I thought we were just going to the movies, so I didn’t pay for her. We actually got a bit drunk before the movie. Everything was kind of unromantic. At the restaurant, there was terrible service, awful drinks, average meal – but at least she was nice.”
Liz starts to laugh, “I could tell he didn’t know if he should hold my hand or not in the movie. So in the car park, I just kissed him. And he was like, ‘What!?'”
It evidently sealed the deal for the couple. But when they moved into their new family home as newlyweds in Ranui, West Auckland, there was one thing missing – a bonny baby.
Heartbreakingly, the bedroom next to their own had sat as an empty nursery for over two years, packed with cute newborn clothes and soft toys from the couple’s previous pregnancies.
After three miscarriages, Liz reveals that they were starting to wonder if a family was ever going to happen for them.
“Even though they were all early on, it was still hard,” she adds. “And this time, I was nervous. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was massive, I don’t think we would have told people. It was pretty obvious. But we did leave it a long time until we said anything.”
It was part of the reason she didn’t want to know her growing bump’s gender.
“I wanted to know,” interjects Josh. “So it was written on a piece of paper and then I knew I was having a daughter. I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t tell my wife. But I had a lot of fun with it – I kept double-bluffing her.”
In April, the couple took the well-trodden path that is etched in the memories of many parents the world over – that much-anticipated dash to the hospital.
For months, they had been enrolled in a hypnobirthing class, with Liz hoping to deep-breathe her way through labour and have a natural birth.
“I have never been so grateful to have an epidural,” she laughs. “So yeah, the birthing plan didn’t really go to plan, but I found the pain unbearable. I was being sick with every contraction. I was exhausted when it came to pushing.”
Josh likes to downplay his role in the birthing suite, regaling people with a tale about falling asleep between contractions. “I would wake up and say things like, ‘You are a strong woman – you are an Amazonian woman,’ then the contraction would be over and I would fall back asleep again,” he says.
But Liz is quick to defend her husband. “He was feeding me little bits of fruit he brought to the hospital in Tupperware. And in return, I was covering him in sick. He was so good throughout. I couldn’t have done it without him.”
While Liz reveals her pregnancy was pretty smooth, the birth was no walk in the park. It took 30 hours before Liz was fully dilated and could start pushing, with the midwives discussing a Caesarean as an option.
“In the end, it was forceps,” Liz tells with a grimace. “But when the midwives handed her to me, I just started wailing. I was blown away.”
Josh nods, “I was kind of assuming the worst the whole time. I think it’s the South Island part of me, which is going, ‘This is too good to be true – I don’t deserve this.’ But then the doctors were
like, ‘She’s all good,’ and I started punching the sky and shouting, ‘Yes, yes!'”
Soana entered this world on April 8, with a full head of beautiful dark hair and weighing a healthy 3.7kg.
And the smitten couple both admit, through glistening eyes and the widest of grins, that she is already spinning their world upside down.
Luckily for Josh, he had cleared out his diary just for this very moment. Earlier this year, he made the shock decision to depart from The Project to have more time to spend with his family.
He now does one or two comedy or acting gigs a week, including recently filming his latest TV show The New Legends of Monkey. But generally, he wants to be home with newborn Soana and his wife of four years.
Josh smiles, “I love having little conversations with her. And yes, I might regret quitting The Project. But this is why I did it, so I could hang out with these two clowns.”
Liz smiles and adds, “There’s no doubt about it – she is one very loved baby.”
