Zoe Marshall, wife of Kiwi rugby league star Benji Marshall, has given birth to their baby boy.
The pair are yet to make an official announcement, but Benji’s former NRL teammate Beau Ryan revealed the news live on air on the The Kyle and Jackie O show in Australia.
“The baby boy hasn’t got a name yet,” he said.
Benji and Zoe found out early on that they were having a boy.
“I have never been so shocked. I totally thought mini Marshall was a girl,” Zoe posted to Instagram, along with a video showing the moment the gender was revealed.
“We are beyond excited to have a little man in the family. I will be encouraging him to tap dance and meditate, Benj on the other hand has other ideas.”
On their 5 year wedding anniversary in January, Zoe posted a heartfelt message to her husband on Instagram.
“We are in the most amazing place and the biggest change is around the corner. Thank you for being patient with me wanting children. I know it was a looong time. But we are here and your confidence and longing to be a father makes me feel stronger about becoming a mum”.
The pair were extremely open about their struggles to fall pregnant. Zoe suffers from endometriosis and went through a controversial extreme detox regime to try and conceive.
Zoe with Dr Liu, the man whose controversial detox plan she took to try and fall pregnant.
The Chinese medicinal program saw her eating nothing but special herbs for eight days in order to regenerate the body’s organs and re-balance hormones.
“It’s a radical approach, but the philosophy behind it is truly mesmerising and I wanted to be a part of it,” she told Woman’s Day at the time. “We had talked about other options, like IVF, but I didn’t want to do it without trying out holistic methods first.”
In an exclusive interview with Woman’s Day announcing their pregnancy in September last year, Benji shared just how much he had longed for a baby.
Zoe and Benji revealed their pregnancy in an interview with Woman’s Day.
“I’ve always believed that I was put on this earth to have a family,” the 32-year-old former Kiwis captain and current Brisbane Broncos player said. “I’ve wanted to be a dad forever.”
Television and radio presenter and blogger Zoe cried tears of joy when she found out on her 33rd birthday that she was pregnant, but she soon began to suffer from crippling morning sickness.
In a post to Instagram only weeks before giving birth, she wrote about the toll the first part of her pregnancy took on her mental and physical health.
“Those weeks were so hard. Having to keep the pregnancy a secret..and having to keep being sick in secret. It’s the hardest most isolating feeling for a woman. I swore I never wanted to be pregnant again. But here we are and I feel great. I love the feeling of my baby in my belly. I actually think I’m going to miss being pregnant.”
