NADINE'S BABY MIRACLE 'I CAN'T BELIEVE WE ENDED UP HERE'

The beloved broadcaster reveals the medical drama that almost derailed her dream

- 

At just seven months old, Nadine Higgins' baby boy Ari has already shown a remarkable fighting spirit.

Arriving almost two months premature, he spent his first three weeks in the neonatal intensive care (NICU) before finally joining his parents and big brother Frankie at home.

A few months later, however, Ari was back in hospital battling a serious illness. Yet through it all, this little miracle has met every challenge thrown at him - and his broadcaster mum and film producer dad Dan, who battled years of infertility, still have to pinch themselves at how lucky they are to have not one but two beautiful boys.

A former presenter on Breakfast, 1News, Seven Sharp and The Project, Nadine's journey to motherhood was far from simple. After marrying in 2017, she and Dan faced years of fertility struggles, enduring gruelling IVF treatments, a miscarriage and even starting the surrogacy process.

They created award-winning podcast The Human Race, highlighting the realities of infertility. Then, against all odds, Nadine conceived naturally and welcomed their miracle son Frankie in September 2023. Just a year later, to their astonishment, she was pregnant again.

But pregnant she was and in March this year, Nadine and Dan's second little miracle decided to make an early entrance into the world when his mum was 33 weeks along. Nadine, host of NZME's The Prosperity Project podcast, had spent the previous night in Auckland Hospital seeking treatment for symphysis pubis dysfunction, a pelvic condition that had left her in agony for much of her pregnancy. Everything aggravated it and the pain was just like nothing else I've ever felt."

After 24 hours on a ward, where doctors tried to get the pain under control, she was sent home and told to return the following day to see a pain specialist and a physiotherapist. But as she walked in the door, she felt her waters breaking.