Hot Tomato’s Emily Jade gives birth to healthy baby
After years of heartbreak, months of praying and weeks of ‘sitting tight’, one of the Gold Coast’s most anticipated babies has safely arrived.
1029 Hot Tomato breakfast host Emily Jade O’Keeffe has given birth to a baby boy, a younger brother to doting sister Millie, seven, and completing her family of four with husband Gerard Murtagh.
‘EJ’ has been very open about her struggle to have a family, detailing how she and Gerard went through 32 rounds of IVF since having Millie, including one miscarriage in 2016.
The 41-year-old announced on air at the end of January, that the couple was finally expecting their second ‘miracle baby’.
She was already 19 weeks along and thought she was in the ‘safe zone’, only to find out a week later that she had a ‘shrinking cervix’ and would need a stitch to ensure the baby stayed in place.
“Having an operation 21 weeks pregnant was the most challenging thing I’ve ever done,” EJ wrote on Instagram in February.
“I pretty much ugly cried on every nurse that came near me. I was petrified I would wake up without my baby.”
It meant absolute bed rest for a number of weeks, forcing the usually busy mum to put her feet up and broadcast her radio show with Flan and Christo from the spare room of her house.
With almost 150,000 Hot Tomato listeners crossing their fingers, toes and everything else for the safe arrival of EJ’s baby, the rest of her pregnancy remained mostly drama-free and at 12.01am on Monday little Teddy James arrived.
The excited, but tired mumma chatted with her co-hosts Flan and Christo, who are joined by former Olympic swimmer Brooke Hanson in EJ’s absence, just hours after the birth.
She described her newborn as a “big bopper”, explaining he weighed “eight pounds 11” (3678g) and is 53cm long.
EJ confirmed she had no time to take any drugs as little Teddy arrived quickly, with just one hour of labour.
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