BABY BLESSING: ‘HAVING OLIVIA WAS THE BEST 40TH BIRTHDAY PRESENT EVER!'

AS DANCING ON ICE STAR BRIANNE DELCOURT AND FORMER FOOTBALLER KEVIN KILBANE EXCLUSIVELY INTRODUCE DAUGHTER OLIVIA MAI THEY REVEAL THEIR HEALTH FEARS FOR HER AHEAD OF THE BIRTH AND SAY THEY’RE CLOSER THAN EVER SINCE WELCOMING HER INTO THEIR FAMILY

- KIRSTY HATCHER

Brianne Delcourt and Kevin Kilbane have certainly squeezed a lot into the past 18 months. Since meeting on Dancing On Ice in October 2019, they have fallen in love, got engaged, bought a house in Canada, tied the knot and had their first child together.

And now they are exclusively introducing daughter Olivia Mai Kilbane, born on 3 February at 8.30am and weighing 6lb 11oz.

When we speak to the couple before our shoot at their five-bed home on Lake Ontario, it’s clear Olivia has further cemented their love. But they admit the run-up to her birth was not stress-free, with fears she wasn’t growing properly. So they were overjoyed when she arrived “absolutely perfect”.

“When I saw Kevin’s big eyes water, I knew she was fine,” says skater Brianne, 40, who is also mum to Gracie, four, and announced she was leaving Dancing On Ice last July to focus on her family. Here, Brianne and Irish former footballer Kevin, 44, tell OK! all about their whirlwind romance and Olivia’s arrival…

Congratulations! How did you choose Olivia’s name?

Brianne: We had two for a girl, the other being Audrey, but we kept going back to Olivia. It’s old and regal. We wanted Mai because one of Gracie’s middle names is my mum’s [Susan], but we thought we can’t have both the same so we took my mum’s birth month, which is May, and Olivia was conceived in May, and spelled it differently.

How was the birth?