Laura Byrne and Matty J’s family is growing!
On Saturday, the pair shared a post on Instagram revealing that Laura had given birth to a gorgeous baby girl they named Poppy Pearl Johnson.
“Third time really is a charm,” they wrote.
“Our sweet little Poppy girl is here and we are all utterly obsessed with every inch of you.
“Poppy Pearl Johnson welcome to the world precious one.”
Before Poppy’s arrival, the couple playfully took to Instagram to share that Laura had gone into labour with her third child and how husband Matty J helped keep the expectant mother “distracted.”
Matty shared a light-hearted video of himself dancing in the hospital room as his wife lay in a bed.
“Performing interpretive dance to distract my wife from contractions,” he wrote.
Laura also posted a photo of Matty holding maternity underwear to her own Instagram account, alongside the caption: “Here we go again.”
Earlier this year, Laura revealed that she didn’t tell Matty J she was pregnant with their third child until she was about 10 weeks along.
Speaking to the Stellar podcast Something To Talk About , the couple explained that Laura found out she was pregnant when Matty was in the South African jungle, filming the latest season of I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here!
“I was about 10 weeks [along] by the time I was able to tell Matt that I was pregnant,” Laura told the podcast. “It was like the biggest secret, but then I also was just telling random people because I couldn’t tell Matt. So I was telling friends, telling my sister.”
“[To Matty J] So many people knew before you did, you poor thing. Do you know who else I told before you? Julia Morris. I was like Julia, I’m so sick. I’m pregnant. Don’t tell Matty, he doesn’t know.”
The couple met on The Bachelor in 2017 and tied the knot on the NSW south coast in 2022.
They’re already parents to Marlie-Mae, six, and Lola, four, and during the podcast they shared the name they’ve chosen for their unborn daughter.
“We are absolutely excited and we cannot wait to meet this little girl, Poppy,” Matty said. “But the reaction from people definitely makes you a little more guarded and apprehensive about what life is gonna be like once they arrive.”
“It is different with number three,” he added. “Number one and number two, everyone’s really positive. They’re like, ‘oh my God, this is amazing’ for your first. ‘How beautiful.’ Number two? ‘Your family’s now complete’.”
Laura agreed saying the couple are almost too prepared for it to be “horrible and hard”.
“Is it gonna be easy? Absolutely not. Is adding another [child] ever easy? No. But I think I feel the most relaxed about this than I ever have been,” she said. “So we’ll see how it all goes. Ask me again in four months’ time.”
In May, the couple announced they were pregnant with their third child with a cute video on Instagram.
“Hi everyone, I got a baby in my mum’s tummy and I’m so excited,” four-year-old Lola announced in the video as she ran around the house smiling. “I’m so, so, so, so, excited.”
“I’d really like it to get a baby out. It’s coming out today! Not really. But I’d really like the baby to come out,” she continues. “It’s not coming out … but I really love it.”
Laura captioned the post: “We are SO SO SO EXCITED!!!! Johnson #3 under construction.”
A week after the announcement, Matty J shared on his podcast Two Doting Dads that he was hesitant to celebrate the pregnancy at first, as Laura had experienced two miscarriages in the past.
“When I found out, we were at 11 weeks. We didn’t even have the big tests, and so I was conscious that it was very early days, and I didn’t want to celebrate that we were having a kid,” he said.
“With our cycle, when I say ours I mean Laura’s. Our first child was a miscarriage, then Laura was pregnant with Marlie. After Marlie was born, she got pregnant again and we lost that child around 12 weeks. And then we had Lola.”
He continued, saying he was worried they were “due another miscarriage”.
“I have moments where I’m trying to envision having a newborn baby in the house, but at the same time, every time I start to imagine it, I put the handbrake up,” he said. “Because I’m like, just waiting for those signs that something might be going wrong.”
“It’s so hard because when that is taken away from you, there’s no greater emotional whiplash than having a miscarriage.”
