PERFECT STORM 'THIS YEAR HAS BEEN A WHIRL WIND!'

The former Silver Fern is engaged and expecting a baby

- Kelly Bertrand

As she cradles her baby bump and the jaw-dropping aquamarine engagement ring on her finger glitters in the sunlight, former Silver Ferns star Storm Purvis laughs as she tries to sum up how crazy 2023 has been.

“Everything has been so zero to 100,” she tells Woman’s Day. “It’s funny how that happens – but this whole year has been a whirlwind.”

Things were not supposed to be quite as speedy for the Sky Sport commentator and Crowd Goes Wild presenter, 30, and her fiancé, lawyer Dan Hilton-Jones, 29, but as fate would have it, the couple, who have been together for almost six years, are due to welcome their little girl in the new year.

“I guess there’s no right time to have a baby or try to plan for one and you can’t count on the timing falling into place,” she says. “I figured it would take a little bit longer because I have polycystic ovary syndrome. I was diagnosed super-young and played my whole netball career not really thinking about it or worrying about it.

“But when I retired and wasn’t focused on being a high-performance athlete, I was proactive about catching up with my endocrinologist and figuring out what I needed to do to get ready to have a baby.”

Taking medication to get her body back on track, Storm still thought that falling pregnant would take a while after she and Dan first began to try.