“Timing’s never been our friend,” The Block Island‘s Haydn Wise tells Woman’s Day of he and his wife of nine years, Chelsea.
And it was certainly the case when it came to the arrival of their five-month-old daughter Matilda – just three days into his time on The Block.
“She wasn’t due until Haydn had been gone for four weeks already. So I thought, ‘Well, it’s only two months on my own with her.’ And then, she had other plans… she came three weeks early,” Chelsea, 36, says.
But it was a magic moment the couple feared may never come.
“She’s 100 per cent a miracle,” Chelsea says emotionally of her daughter, who arrived via emergency C-section in March. “We thought there was no chance we would ever be parents,” says Haydn, 37.
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It’s been a long, hard journey to meeting their daughter, who the couple have dubbed their “unicorn” baby.
“We’d been trying for nine years and we knew pretty quickly we weren’t going to have one naturally, or we didn’t think we were, so we went through the IVF process. That went on for a number of years, then we had Covid in between and it paused, and then we gave up,” says Haydn.
“We did our last IVF cycle in February 2023 and then we went on holiday to Thailand in March and we decided while we were away that was it for us. And then, in the June I found out that I was pregnant!”
Haydn says he applied for The Block, “not thinking I had a chance and then when I got the call, when Chels was eight months pregnant, we thought ‘How’s the timing of this? What do we do?’”
NO REGRETS
But Chelsea says the new parents “don’t like to live life with regrets”.
“I think if Haydn didn’t do it, it would have been a regret. It’s a life-changing experience.”
And, of course, one that could set their little family up for life! “Oh, it would be beyond a dream,” Haydn says with a big sigh.
“If we can do well out of it, then it will certainly help – throw it on the mortgage, it’s been a tough nine years.”
Haydn reveals the couple put the eye-watering costs for IVF onto their mortgage. But they say they’d do it all again in a heartbeat!
“She’s everything we dreamed of and more,” says proud new mum Chelsea. “If you’d asked me what my dream baby would be, she’s that times 10! She’s an angel,” says the proud new mum of little Matilda, who has slept through the night from the day she was born. “She’s a unicorn baby.”
So much so that Haydn says new parenthood is a walk in the park compared to The Block! “The Block was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” he says. “And parenthood is very rewarding. With Tils, I wouldn’t say it’s tough or a chore.”
THEIR BLOCK FAMILY
Haydn says Nine and the show’s producers made the transition to fatherhood while filming the reality show at the same time a little easier, though.
“The Block looked after Chelsea and helped put her in a house on the island for a couple of weeks. And I could go and do some quick visits.”
Of course, reality TV’s luckiest couple also had the much-needed support of Haydn’s bestie and Block teammate, Ricky Recard.
“He’s put his hand up to babysit,” Haydn says of his best mate of 20 years.
But Chelsea isn’t so sure… “I’m a bit nervous to put Tilly in his hands,” she says with a laugh. “He would just freak out.”
The 34-year-old plumber will play an integral part in Matilda’s life though. “We’ve given him the label of godfather,” Haydn explains with a smile. “He accepted it before she was born.”
