She's A Heart-breaker! Shea's Little Cheer Leader

Fatherhood’s a new game for the basketballer

- Cloe Willetts

Mayer Ili may be the New Zealand Breakers’ tiniest fan, but it didn’t stop the blue-eyed bub from intercepting dad Shea Ili’s basketball game against the Perth Wildcats with her alarming arrival.

Seven-week-old Mayer surprised her point-guard dad and adoring mum Morgan with an early birth after an ultrasound showed she was measuring three weeks behind her expected size.

“I went to a scan while Shea was training for a Breakers game he was flying to the next day and started freaking out,” tells Morgan, 24, who discovered she was pregnant while her hubby was at the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast last year. “The person doing it kept going in and out of the room but not telling me why. I was worried something was wrong.”

After an agonising hour’s wait for a call from their midwife, the first-time parents learnt there was also limited blood flow to the placenta and their unborn baby – whosegender was kept secret – had to be induced.

“Being the calm person he is, Shea assured me it’d all be fine,” recalls Morgan. “He rang his coach and said he couldn’t go overseas. It was nice he was able to stay with me.”