Mike Goldman and his wife, Bianca Zouppas, are still in awe of the gorgeous baby boy quietly nestled in their arms.
Having spent years trying to start a family, and suffering one heartbreaking miscarriage, they finally welcomed their “little man” Jagger in May, and it’s been nothing but bliss ever since.
“Yes, it’s 100 per cent a miracle,” former Big Brother narrator Mike tells New Idea. “There’s still part of me that can’t believe it’s happened.”
Mike, 51, had all but given up on his dream to be a dad until he fell in love with actress Bianca. They met in 2016 and quietly tied the knot in 2019.
Due to COVID they had to wait another three years to celebrate with loved ones, so they decided to bring forward their baby plans. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that simple.
Mike and Bianca, 31, began trying to conceive at the start of 2022. After 12 months with no luck, Bianca found out she was suffering from severe endometriosis.
Surgery fixed that problem and they tried again to fall pregnant naturally. When that didn’t happen, they decided to try IVF, which gave them three eggs, and all became viable embryos.
The first transfer sadly ended in miscarriage just two weeks later, while the second didn’t work at all.
“We did the third and final embryo transfer in October 2023, and luckily Jagger survived,” Bianca tells us with a warm smile.
With all that heartache to fall pregnant, Bianca and Mike, who voiced and hosted shows on Big Brother from 2001 to 2020, decided on a natural hypnobirth.
But Jagger had other ideas, and after 13 hours of increasingly painful labour, Bianca went in for an emergency caesarean.
Jagger made his entrance into the world at 11.04pm on May 29 at the Mater Hospital in Brisbane. He arrived three weeks and two days early, weighing 3.164kg – and certainly wasn’t the little girl Mike predicted!
“They pulled out Jagger and Bianca and I looked at each other and said, ‘it’s a boy’ at the same time,” recalls Mike, who has appeared in several films and hosted multiple TV and radio shows.
“We both got teary because we couldn’t believe that after everything we’d been through, we finally had this beautiful little boy.”
Jagger was put on a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine as he was born with embryonic fluid on his lungs. As doctors stitched Bianca up, Mike got in some “special” bonding time with Jagger.
Bianca then insisted on being wheeled down to the nursery in her hospital bed at 4am to properly meet their son and have a cuddle herself.
Five weeks on, the couple are home and loving every second with their baby boy. Mike says he especially cherishes lying in bed early in the morning with Jagger and their Pomeranian, Mister Big, who is also smitten with the family’s new addition.
“We’re finding our groove now,” says Bianca, who documented her pregnancy journey with a podcast, IVF – What Your Mumma Went Through. “Our little family is finally complete.”
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