We’re a pretty healthy couple. We take good care of ourselves and each other and surround ourselves with positive people who share a similar outlook on life.

I’m a 30 year old New Zealander, having moved to Australia in 2006. Pete is 37 years old and emigrated from the UK in 2005. We fell in love with this country and each other and have happily settled here in Melbourne. We met through triathlon in 2007 and were married in February 2012.

Pete and Kristie on their wedding day.
Photo: Candy Capco

We’ve participated in different sports for a large majority of our lives and on any given day you’ll either find us on our bikes, in a pool or running around Melbourne. We’re very proud of what we’ve achieved through sport and believe it has taught us valuable life lessons that have helped mould us into the people we are today.

Before starting a family we chose to enjoy married life for a while and squeezed in a bit of travel, time together and an Ironman and marathon each. Those long distance races may seem crazy to some, but we really enjoy the different challenges each one brings, as well as the lifelong friendships we have formed through training for each one.

I completed the Melbourne Marathon in October 2013 while Pete was training towards his seventh Ironman event, Ironman Melbourne in March 2014. That Ironman was to be his one last hit out before welcoming our first child in July 2014.

Following my marathon in October, we found ourselves extremely fortunate to fall pregnant straight away. I remember Pete coming home from a long training ride and telling him that I was pregnant. The look of shock on his face was priceless.  Shock soon turned to joy, joy to excitement, excitement to panic and panic back to excitement again. We would be welcoming our first child into the world and soon have a new, very exciting challenge: parenthood.

Looking back, those first few weeks went by so quickly. At the time, however, it felt like the days couldn’t go by quick enough as I suffered from morning sickness and struggled to get through each day, often collapsing on the couch when I got home.

We were excited to get to 12 weeks, so Pete could finally see what had been making me so sick. As soon as we saw our baby for the first time he won’t hesitate in telling you that he cried immediately. There was our beautiful baby up on the screen wriggling around, healthy and perfectly formed. I affectionately named our little bump “1 Metre” after Pete’s nickname “2 Metre Peter” as the scan revealed he or she was going to be tall like him. What a truly special day that was.

Lily giving us a wave at 12 weeks gestation

We soon shared our news, along with the pictures of “1 Metre” and were excited to be pregnant at the same time as a number of friends. Throughout January and February we lived as normal a life as possible, working full-time, juggling morning sickness and Pete training for the Ironman, while slowly starting to prepare for such a large change to our lives. Everyone kept telling me the morning sickness would go away after the first-trimester (it didn’t!), then the old wives tale that I must be having a girl.

We thought we had plenty of time to get everything ready and when Pete had completed the Ironman we could start preparing for the arrival of our baby in the middle of the year. Life was going well for us, 2014 was going to be an amazing year…

Much love,
Kristie