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With her newborn baby girl, Willa, snuggled into her chest, Emily McMahon looked over at her husband Farmer David and smiled.
The couple – who fell in love on Season 13 of Farmer Wants a Wife – had welcomed their first child just seven weeks earlier: making their shared dreams of having a family come true.
The “magic” of birth has already led Emily to understand why mums yearn to have another baby after welcoming their first, but as she and David sat down for a chat with Australian Women’s Weekly Love Stories podcast, they also shared details of a struggle they went through along the way.
While falling pregnant with baby Willa was something that happened quickly for the couple once they had decided to try for a family, Emily revealed she had endured a difficult pregnancy – one they both describe as “really tough”.
“The first 15 weeks was really rough and then I got sick whenever I was in a car, or driving a car… sick if I’m hungry or sick after eating food…” the reality star told podcast host Tiffany Dunk. “Pregnancy, it was tough.”
Emily, a school teacher, needed to drive 40 minutes from the couple’s Stanthorpe farm to work each day in the car while she was expecting – and when she got there she had to keep her debilitating symptoms a secret.
“She’d land at work feeling horrible, and then she couldn’t tell anyone yet because it was still early, so that period was really tough,” David explained.
Emily credited David for being “so supportive” during her pregnancy, telling her husband that she “could not have got through it” without him.
After enduring an 18-hour labour that ended in an emergency C-section on April 10 2026, Emily welcomed Willa Mae McMahon into the world.
“Watching your wife become a mother is just the most incredible thing,” a smitten David told Love Stories, before joking, “If I woke [Emily] up in the middle of the night before the baby, I would’ve been killed. Now, she just finds this energy from nowhere…”
Fatherhood, he said, “definitely shifts your priorities”, and he explained he felt “excitement” for the future.
“[Children] just become a part of your life so I think your future is them,” Emily agreed. “You just can’t wait to see what’s around the corner.”
So what kind of a future can Baby Willa expect? One thing’s for sure, she’ll be brought up on the very farm where her parents’ love story was filmed for TV.
“I’m already so jealous of her childhood. I think it’s going to be beautiful for her to grow up here doing all the really awesome farm things with Dad,” Emily explained.
And parenthood isn’t the only big change the loved-up duo are embracing: The couple are set to open a wedding venue on the farm later this year, Lagnicourt, with the help of David’s family.
So what does David hope Willa will know about love by the time she’s old enough to fall for someone special?
“Love should make you feel good and feel like yourself, and that’s the exact feeling I had right back on that first day [on Farmer Wants a Wife],” he told Love Stories.
“So many people think love is what looks good or what should be good. Ultimately you have to be feeling the best version of yourself to know you’re in love.”
Listen as Farmer David and Emily share their love story on the Australian Women’s Weekly Love Stories podcast.
