Pictures: Robert Trathen
Growing up, TV weather presenter Heather Keats wasn’t the sort of girl who dreamed of a big white wedding or settling down and having children. Her focus was on her career and from the age of 13, she knew she wanted to work in broadcasting.
Yet in her early twenties, as her radio career was taking off, a health battle saw the self-professed “science nerd” faced with a difficult choice – embark on motherhood now or risk missing out entirely.
“It was very confronting,” recalls weather guru Heather, now 40, who joined ThreeNews after the shock closure of Newshub. “I remember thinking, ‘I’m only 22 – I can’t have a baby!’”
While she never imagined starting a family so young, Heather had already married the love of her life, Steve. Together they decided to take their chance. Before they knew it, Heather was pregnant with baby Emma, who is now a gorgeous 17-year-old.
Becoming a young mother might not have been the plan, but Heather is grateful every day for her precious gift.
She smiles, “I easily could have missed out on Emma, which feels unimaginable because she’s the best thing in my life.”
To viewers, Heather might look like a picture of health. However, the broadcaster has faced more than her fair share of medical problems over the years. As a teenager, she developed excruciatingly painful periods and was later diagnosed with endometriosis, a condition where tissue grows outside the uterus.
Around this time, she also started experiencing severe migraines. While she was a student at the New Zealand Broadcasting School in Christchurch, she was found to have a rare blood-circulation disorder after she began to faint with frightening regularity. She recalls passing out while on air and even lost consciousness behind the wheel of her car.
“It was terrifying,” admits Heather. A doctor referred her to a neurologist and cardiologist to try to get to the bottom of her problems. “I had no idea when I was going to pass out, so I felt anxious pretty much all the time. I really felt like my body was letting me down.”
Eventually, doctors diagnosed her with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), which causes an increase in heart rate when standing and can prompt a range of symptoms, including fainting and dizziness. Treatment involves medication and dietary changes, namely tripling your salt intake and restricting strenuous exercise.
But this diagnosis, teamed with the endometriosis and migraines, meant student life was becoming unmanageable, so Heather dropped out of broadcasting school and moved to Auckland to be closer to family. She landed a job at ZM, which is where she met her now-husband Steve.
Even though Heather had vowed never to marry, the star’s outlook immediately changed and the pair wed in Hawai’i in July 2006. She grins, “I know it sounds a little bit corny, but he really was made for me. I genuinely believe he is perfect for me. He was then and he still is now.”
She might have found love, but Heather’s health problems persisted and three weeks after their wedding, she underwent her first of many operations to tackle endometriosis. She remembers waking up after the anaesthetic to the news that significant growth had been found in her bowel, left ovary and right Fallopian tube.
“The surgeon said to me, ‘If you’re planning on having a child, I highly recommend you try now because it will be very unlikely that you’ll be able to in the future.’ I felt completely stunned because I really hadn’t planned to have kids this side of 30.
“But Steve and I talked about it, and we knew that if it was our only chance, then we really had to grab it. I got pregnant pretty much straight away.”
The couple felt delighted, but as Heather would soon find out, “pregnancy hated me”! She developed hyperemesis gravidarum, a condition that causes excessive nausea and vomiting, famously also experienced by the Princess of Wales.
“We counted it up – I vomited 10 times a day for 248 days in a row,” says Heather, who was hospitalised several times for dehydration. Doctors also put her on strict bedrest for the final 12 weeks of the pregnancy to help her manage her POTS, which had flared up during pregnancy. “It was really strange to be so sick and feel so gross, but this little girl inside me was thriving.”
Emma arrived at 4.50pm on a Friday afternoon in June 2007 – healthy and everything her parents had dreamed of.
“From the moment we saw her, we were just so in love,” recalls Heather. “She was such a good baby and compared to how sick I’d been, I just felt amazing. Having a newborn felt easy compared to that.”
And despite being the first of her friends to become a mother, Heather never felt like she was missing out.
“I was living a completely different life to most people my age, but I didn’t have any regrets at all. I loved being a mum from the start.”
Heather left radio to study science when Emma was seven. Then, she moved into television in 2019, when Newshub offered her a weather-presenting role. She felt thrilled to join Samantha Hayes and Laura Tupou at Stuff’s ThreeNews, which debuted in July.
Unfortunately, Heather’s endometriosis returned soon after giving birth. She underwent six more operations, but at 28, she made the decision to have a hysterectomy. Surgeons removed her uterus and the one affected ovary.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more excited about a visit to a hospital in my life and it was the best thing I ever did,” she laughs. Her endometriosis agony was over, but so too was the chance of carrying another baby.
“We got a lot of flak for the decision to only have one child,” says Heather, who jokes that whenever Emma asked for a sibling, they bought another pet. “So now we have three cats and a dog! But we felt that having one child was the right thing to do for us.
“Steve and I love that no matter what, one of us is always available for her. We’ve travelled a lot with her and sent her to a private school, and those are things we wouldn’t have been able to do with more than one.”
And Emma agrees her bond with her parents couldn’t be closer. Having a young mum is something she knows is special. She loves that Heather shares her taste in music and movies, and describes her as “the most supportive person in the world”.
“We’re like best friends,” says the teen. “If we weren’t mother and daughter, we would still probably be friends because we genuinely get along. She’s really open-minded, which makes her really understanding and loving. But if I was to give one word to describe what kind of mum she is, it would be ‘fun’.”
The pair have also supported each other recently with Emma’s diagnosis of POTS. Heather says she was initially angry she’d passed on the condition to her daughter. However, it’s been reassuring to be able to support her through it.
Together, they monitor their heart rates, and help each other with diet and exercise. They have even trained their golden retriever Aspen to bark for help and lick their faces if either of them passes out.
Emma says, “Thankfully, my experience with POTS hasn’t been as bad as it was for Mum. But it still really sucks. Mum having it made it so easy to get diagnosed, which I’m really thankful for.”
And now, as high-achieving Emma eyes a psychology degree when she finishes school next year, Heather – who is having one final operation this month to remove her remaining ovary after developing cysts – readily admits she’s dreading the prospect of an empty nest.
“I’ve told her I’ll be following her wherever she decides to go,” laughs Heather. “It’s a funny thing, watching your child grow up. We’re so happy she is doing so well and that she’s nearly ready to take off into the world. But at the same time, I know I will be heartbroken. Thank goodness for aeroplanes!”
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