CAT & JEREMY 'OUR 3-YEAR BATTLE WAS WORTH IT'

It’s been a long, hard road, but the reality TV favourites are finally having a baby

- Florence Haritgan

The Block NZ: Villa Wars star Jeremy Hill has been keeping busy on a very special renovation project in his 1930s New Plymouth bungalow – a nappy-changing bench in the laundry that he hopes will be ready by the time he and wife Cat welcome their first child, a son, later this month.

“I’m really looking forward to being a dad,” the 36-year-old designer tells Woman’s Day, while kindy teacher Cat, 34, adds, “We’re just so grateful and excited that we get to be parents.”

Indeed, the reality TV favourites – who won hearts and the People’s Choice Award on The Block in 2015 – have had a long and often-heartbreaking journey to starting their family.

“I was born with a genetic condition called balanced translocation,” explains Cat of the chromosomal disorder where reproductive cells end up with extra or missing material. “It hasn’t affected me my whole life, but I knew that when it came to babies, it would make things a bit tricky.”

Jeremy continues, “We were told there was a 50% chance we would have a miscarriage or that something would be severely wrong with the baby and a 50% chance the baby would be OK, so for us to have kids, it was like rolling the dice. We have a mate who’s a doctor and he put us on the in-vitro fertilisation path.”

By having eggs taken from Cat and fertilised by Jeremy’s sperm in a lab to form an embryo, before implanting them back in Cat’s uterus, “we could improve our odds of having a healthy baby”, the Taranaki local tells.