Kaitaia family has a birth story to beat them all

Rererangi and Tim Pio with their new baby, Marei Kura Rose.

Kaitaia couple Rererangi and Tim Pio will never forget the day fourth daughter and fifth baby arrived for a number of reasons, including the story of the birthing pool.

Every one of those memories will bring smiles to their faces for many years to come.

Top of the list is that Marei Kura Rose Pio weighed a robust 5715gm, the heaviest home-birth baby of midwife Naomi Golding's career, and showing no sign of being beaten by any of her colleagues' collective experience.

She wasn't especially long - 54cm, Rererangi said - but she was certainly plump.

Rererangi's first child had entered the world at an unremarkable 3628gm. The second weighed 4082gm, the third 4536gm - and Marei could well be her last "if they're going to keep getting bigger".

This was her second home birth - number two had arrived in too much of a rush when the family were living in Auckland, but this delivery had been memorable.

"It was a beautiful labour," she said. And quite a crowd-puller. By the time Marei arrived there were 16 people in the couple's Kaitaia home.

"We planned on five, but they just kept coming through the door," she said. "There were even some kids who stopped by on their way to school."

"It was so relaxed and calm," dad Tim said, although there had been one small glitch. The kids had long hot baths and showers the night before, and when it was time for Rererangi to get into the pool there was no hot water.

"That was soon fixed though - the pool was emptied and the water replaced, using every pot and every element on the stove.

Meanwhile Marei, now almost a month old, had well and truly mastered the arts of eating and sleeping, although she had been known to complain if a nappy change took a little too long.

And there was one more small detail about her birth that would never be forgotten - she arrived one week late (on September 8), at 8.13am - which, in pounds and ounces, was precisely her mum's birth weight.