In an exclusive interview and photoshoot with HELLO! magazine, Olympic champion boxer Nicola Adams and her girlfriend Ella Baig reveal they are expecting a baby boy.
"It's super cool. I'm excited, happy, nervous and just wondering what to expect," Nicola tells HELLO! "All my friends have boys, so I was like: 'Yes!' when I found out."
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"I think it's safe to say the baby is a fighter," adds her partner of four years, 24-year-old model and influencer Ella, who is in her second trimester of pregnancy.
WATCH: Nicola Adams and Ella Baig reveal the sex of their baby
"It's definitely an active baby. From about 17 weeks I was feeling kicks and whenever we went for a scan – I don't even know what it was doing – perhaps backflips. I can actually see it moving in my stomach right now."
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Revealing their exciting news, the couple turn their hand to a spot of crafting, throwing some pink and blue paint at a blank canvas, before covering it with a beautiful rainbow of paint splatters and handprints. Then, for the grand reveal, Nicola and Ella peel back some vinyl letters to reveal the words: 'It's a boy!'
© Photo: HELLO!The couple are excited to be having a baby boy
"Being part of the LGBTQ community, I am aware of the issues surrounding gender reveals, as they often reinforce gender stereotypes," explains Ella, whose idea it was to creatively reveal the baby's sex in this way. "I thought this was a good opportunity to bring awareness to the difference between sex and gender and make it less stereotypical. We started off with the pink and blue, then got rid of it."
As a same-sex couple, Nicola and Ella's path to parenthood involved IVF, with the couple deciding to use Nicola's egg, fertilised via a sperm donor that resembles Ella. "It feels really good to finally have a baby on the way. All the ups and downs were worth it in the end," says Nicola.
But their fertility journey has come with heartbreak; the first attempt failed as the embryo didn't take and the second try resulted in a miscarriage at eight weeks.
"I hope our story gives hope to other couples who might be in our position," explains Ella, who is eager to share her personal experiences in the hope of raising awareness of pregnancy loss and fertility. "As soon as we started our journey and experienced miscarriage, I realised how little we know about it but also how common it is, and I knew I wanted to talk openly about it."
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