After announcing her surprise pregnancy in September 2022, Martha Kalifatidis and partner Michael Brunelli have had anything but an easy time as they prepare for parenthood.
The loved up couple discovered the happy news during their trip to Rome, Italy earlier in the year, but their happiness was short lived, as Martha was soon diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, a rare pregnancy condition that affects about two per cent of pregnant women and causes extreme morning sickness.
After dramatically scaling back their social media presence, the couple finally returned to Instagram, revealing to fans the ”hell” of the last few months.
But as you read on you’ll discover that things eventually took a positive turn for Martha during her pregnancy, with the happy couple seemingly letting slip their chosen baby name in February 2023.
”It’s been a minute since we’ve been online, so we wanted to explain our situation and make a little bit of an announcement, and that is that Martha is pregnant,” the original announcement began.
Martha continued: ”I don’t want to sound like I am complaining, we are so excited, we are so happy. It was a complete surprise,” she explained.
”But at five weeks I was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, which is basically severe chronic nausea and vomiting with no relief. It is like 24/7.”
Bubs is due in February 2023.
(Image: Instagram)The reality TV star’s condition got so bad that she was constantly in and out of hospital, shedding a whopping 10 kilos in just five weeks as she tried to manage the condition.
”I literally did not get out of bed for two months; I was so sick. I could not eat or drink anything. There were days that I did not even get up to pee,” Martha continued.
”I feel really bad because I don’t really know how to navigate this and talk about this because I feel like there’s women who have the best time when they’re pregnant.
”Then there’s people who struggle so hard, and they will do anything to be pregnant,” she admitted.
Speaking to Yahoo Lifestyle, Michael said it was ”horrific” to watch Martha suffer like she did.
”For those first few weeks [after Martha found out she was pregnant in Italy] she was in the most horrific state I’ve seen her in and was no better when we got back.”
The first four months of pregnancy proved rough for Martha as she battled a rare pregnancy condition that saw her in and out of hospital and stuck in her bed.
(Image: Instagram)Fortunately, at the four month mark of her pregnancy (which lined up with her return to social media in September), Martha said she was lucky enough to find a doctor that was able to prescribe medication that has her feeling ”human again”.
”I’ve just started some new medication, and it’s been amazing. It’s like the only thing that has helped me,” she said at the time.
Following months of heartache, Michael also revealed to his followers that just before they found out the baby news, he’d been out for dinner with friends in Istanbul, Turkey, and got a very fitting fortune cookie.
”A new baby is coming into your family,” it read.
Michael shared a sweet Instagram tribute to his fiance Martha, explaining just how ”proud” he was of how strong she had been whilst pregnant.
(Image: Instagram)One day after confirming their pregnancy news, Michael shared a picture of himself and Martha in bed together.
In the caption, he explained how proud he was of her and the sickness she’d gone through.
“The past few months have been tough,” he said.
“I watched Martha go from enjoying a holiday, to nervously celebrating a new stage in our life, to moaning in pain for hours and days on end.
“She has spent best part of the last 10 weeks in bed 24 hours a day, dehydrated, nauseous, vomiting, restless, tired, anxious, fatigued and unable to properly sleep or eat. Multiple hospital visits, medications and medical opinions and still suffering through. But she is a f–king warrior! And so is every other woman that is diagnosed with HG or any pregnancy related condition.
“I can’t begin to imagine what it’s felt like for her, and while I’ve tried to help as much as I can, at times I’ve just felt completely helpless.”
In a cheeky snap, Michael shared an image of the now heavily pregnant Martha who looks like she is about to pop at just six months along.
(Image: Instagram)According to Michael, Martha is now enjoying ”good days” along with the bad.
”She’s having a lot more good days now where she’s actually able to get up and go outside, but then on the flip side, there are still those bad days where she is stuck in bed feeling really nauseaous. We’re trying to focus on the positives and keep that positive reinforcement coming, and there’s not so much suffering now,” he told Yahoo Lifestyle.
Just recently, Martha revealed that she was finally able to step outside of the house now that she wasn’t ”horizontal 24/7” from morning sickness, attending both the Melbourne Cup and a recent Gucci event in Sydney.
Martha stepped out in November for the opening of the Gucci Archetypes exhibition, one of her first public appearances in months.
(Image: Instagram)In late November, Michael also told Now To Love exclusively that the couple were preparing for parenthood as best they could, seeking advice from their families.
”Martha has a niece and I have two baby nephews, so we are just picking the brains of our family.
”There has been a lot of advice online that we are trying to take on board as well. But at the end of the day, and what we have been told by everyone out there, is that we will learn so much when the baby comes. You can read all you want but the moment the baby is born everything will be thrown out the window.
”It’ll be a crazy new world for us in 2023.”
This was Martha’s first baby bump update at the four month mark.
(Image: Instagram)Michael also confirmed to Now To Love that he was working on incorporating a pregnancy and postpartum program into his fitness company TruFit.
”Whether or not this will be filmed with Martha is yet to be decided, depending on how she is feeling but we shall see.”
At the six month mark Martha looks ready to pop!
(Image: Instagram)In a special episode of her Swipe Up podcast, Martha shed further light on her experience with Hyperemesis Gravidarum (HG).
Whilst discussing her own shocking symptoms, she also acknowledged that other women can have it much worse to co host Roj Torabi.
”It can be so bad that some women are hospitalised for the whole nine months,” Martha tells Roj.
”I just had nausea and vomiting and it was sh*t, but at least I wasn’t being fed through a tube.”
When she was first discovered she was pregnant, Martha’s doctor in Athens thought she might have HG, but it wasn’t until she returned home to Australia that she was officially diagnosed.
”By that time, I had lost eight or nine kilos in just five weeks and my body was in ketosis. Now, my body is not my body anymore. All my muscle has just gone. I have no strength – even just walking up stairs is hard because I laid in bed for five months and waste away.”
According to Martha, her symptoms came on ”quickly” and ”with force”.
”You barely sleep at night, and you’re in a dark room all day. It had to be cold. You don’t know if it’s day or night. Michael would make a million suggestions about what to eat. He would cut up three slices of a green apple and I couldn’t get through it. I couldn’t drink water. I would just lie there.
”A lot of the time, I wasn’t even vomiting, just dry heaving, or it was bile. I was so dehydrated that my urine looked like a long black – it was brown and disgusting.
”Everything would make me want to throw up. Every sound. I would go days without showering. It was just a whole lot of nothing’.”
”Now I’m further along, I have some relief” Martha said on her podcast in November.
(Image: Instagram)Now at the six month mark, Martha said things were a lot better health wise.
”Acupuncture helped my reflux symptoms a lot. My obstetrician advised acupuncture, and she has been amazing. She also gave me anti-sickness medications which will stop you from throwing up but it doesn’t stop you from feeling nauseous.
”Now I’m further along, I have some relief. The mornings are still disgusting. I get up at 2:45am. I have insomnia so I am up lying there feeling sick but I can’t move until I have eaten something.
”Michael brings me something in bed at 6am and then I can go back to sleep again. Then I can get up slowly again by midday. Then by 4 or 4:30m I am done for the day as I know the reflux is coming. But it is getting better now.”
In an appearance on The Handbags podcast, Martha and Micheal opened up about some of their latest baby name suggestions, admitting that they weren’t really seeing ”eye to eye” on the matter.
”Everytime I bring a name up it just gets pushed into the background because Martha keeps saying, ”We can wait til the baby’s born, we don’t need to discuss it right now,” Michael told podcast host and fellow reality TV alum Josh Moss.
Martha then jumped in, calling her fiancee’s suggestions ”shocking.”
”Once it’s out there, I will tell you some of the names that he’s come up with,” Martha teased.
”It’s like he wants this child to be tortured.”
Martha then revealed that many of Michael’s baby name suggestions were inspired by ancient greek mythology.
”You’re Italian though,” Josh reminded Michael.
”But the baby’s going to be half Greek half Italian, it’s about heritage,” Michael explained.
Martha then added that a final decision wouldn’t be made until bubs is born.
”I’m a really strong believer in we have to meet the baby first and then we’ll get a vibe from this baby,” she said.
”We’ll figure out if it’s going to be a sweet chilled out baby or feisty, sassy, crazy and then we can go from there.”
In February 2023, just weeks before her due date, the soon to be parents revealed their joy, confirming to fans and followers that their bubs to be would be a boy.
In a sweet video shared to their socials, they wrote: ”Oh boy do we have news.”
But Martha wasn’t super stoked at the gender initially, telling KISS FM’s Will & Woody that she was ”devastated” over her unborn baby’s sex.
”Guys, I was 100 percent sure I was having a girl, like I only opened girl clothing tabs on my phone, I was so convinced,” she told the hosts.
”There was no chance in my mind it was going to be a boy, I had planned my whole life for this girl. I’ll be so honest with you guys. At the beginning, I was devastated like I was so upset. It took me a few days to like come to terms with it.”
Martha shared a number of stunning snaps to her Instagram before swiftly deleting them, presumably because she accidentally revealed the name of her unborn baby boy.
(IMAGE: Instagram)The reality star quickly came around however, celebrating her upcoming birth with close friends at family at her baby shower mid February.
At the baby shower, friends and family were encouraged to write their well wishes into a guest book.
Of note is one from Martha’s mother Mary who wrote: ”Dearest Guiseppe, you are my first grandchild. You will be forever loved and spoilt. I know you will love me because I will spoil you so much. Everything your heart desires will be yours. Love you Guiseppe, can’t wait to meet you.”
Given Martha and Michael conceived their child in Italy and have hinted at wanting an Italian name for their child, it comes as no surprise that Guiseppe is the name the couple have chosen for their baby boy!
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