AFL Footy Show host Rebecca Maddern has announced she is pregnant with her first child.
Posting on Instagram, the TV presenter wrote her and husband Trent Miller “can’t wait” for their new arrival next year.
In an interview with The Fix, Maddern said she and her husband of three years have enjoyed surprising their closest family and friends with the news.
“It’s been so special over the past few days to share the news with family and close friends,” she said.
She added the pregnancy hadn’t been an easy one, with the TV host and journalist riddled with morning sickness round the clock.
“I suffered quite badly with morning sickness, or as as I like to call it 24/7 sickness, early on,” she told the news outlet.
“That’s tough because you can’t tell workmates why you’re not 100 percent — but that has pretty much passed now, so it’s nice to start to enjoy the feeling of being pregnant.”
In June, 40-year-old Maddern touched on the difficulty of being a childless woman in the public eye, saying she could not win when posed with a question about whether she wanted children.
“It’s a no-win answer because if I say, ‘No, I don’t want children,’ then the stereotype is that I’m a hard-faced b.i.t.c.h,” she told Stellar Magazine at the time.
“If I say I want children, then perhaps this article will become, ‘Well, Rebecca’s 40 but, you know, barren,’ to use that word that was applied to Julia Gillard unfairly.”
In a separate interview with The Herald Sun, Maddern said she planned to be part of The Footy Show for as much of next year as she can.
“At this stage I plan to be part of The Footy Show for as much as I possibly can in 2018, although in saying that, it is really hard to set a timeline when a baby is involved,” she said.
Top Comments
Can the headline just be Rebecca pregnant instead of 'pregnant at 40' like it's a miracle. People fall pregnant in 40s, would be nice to reflect this in your stories rather than be negative and fear mongering.
Yep, it's common... and I'm tired of the media making it seem like some freak event. My grandmother had a baby at 45! And my great grandmother gave birth in her late 40s. It wasn't uncommon back then either.
It is extremely difficult to fall pregnant naturally or with IVF at 40 and beyond, particularly for a first pregnancy. A 20-something year old has a 25-30% chance per menstrual cycle, at 40 it’s <5%. I don’t think MM is being negative or fear-mongering, but it is the reality that managing to conceive (and take home a baby) is exponentially harder the older you get, particularly after 35 and especially after 40.
This is all very true, but at the same time it's nice to focus just on the news that someone's having a baby without adding the whole "OMG, she's having a baby at HER age?" aspect.
When a former colleague recently had a baby, someone at work tried to explain to a newbie who the colleague was and decided that instead of just saying "she used to work here" decided to add "I'm so surprised, I thought she was a bit past that". Completely unnecessary.