The Block NZ's Cat & Jeremy ‘MEET OUR MIRACLE BABY!'

After years of heartbreak, a tricky birth has brought the TV favourites their beloved little boy

- Florence Hartigan

Settling in for their Woman’s Day shoot, The Block NZ: Villa Wars stars Cat and Jeremy Hill are thrilled to introduce the latest and best addition to their New Plymouth family home – their new baby Sullivan Hayes Hill.

“I know we’re biased, but we think he’s really cute,” says Jeremy, 36, smiling down at his five-month-old son, who they call Sully for short.

“We locked his name in a while ago,” adds Cat, 34. “There were a few that we liked, but because I’m a kindy teacher, in the three years it took us to conceive, a kid would always come through class with the name we’d picked and ruin it! Luckily, we both really liked Sully and I haven’t come across any others yet!”

Originally from Arrowtown, Cat was born with a condition called balanced translocation, which affects the genetic material in her reproductive cells, leading to a high risk of problems during pregnancy.

This meant that the Block fan favourites, who got married in 2018, underwent three years of gruelling IVF to start their family – including months of painful injections, invasive procedures to harvest eggs and an anaesthetic that caused Cat to have a violent allergic reaction. And then there was the emotional toll of multiple pregnancies that didn’t last.

But in the end, the Taranaki couple managed to create two embryos – one of which became Sully, born on the 22nd of December in 2021.

“We were trying to have him before Christmas, which we did – just!” chuckles Jeremy, who works as a senior designer at a business agency.