AFLW star Nicola Stevens has welcomed her first child with her partner, Elise Rose, who gave birth to an adorable baby boy.<\/p>\n
The 32-year-old St Kilda defender took to social media at the weekend to announce the news by sharing a sweet post of the engaged couple\u2019s new little family member.<\/p>\n
\u201cWelcome to the world, Otis Benjamin,\u201d Stevens said in an Instagram post.<\/p>\n
\u201cYour mummies love you so much little darling.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the photo, Otis can be seen catching a snooze while dressed in a beanie and striped jumpsuit.<\/p>\n
Also in the image was a wooden tag with the baby\u2019s name on it and birth details, which revealed Otis was born September 10, weighing 4.1 kg and measuring 51 cm.<\/p>\n
Stevens\u2019 fans and friends were quick to post messages of congratulations to the pair, who announced their engagement in January.<\/p>\n
\u201cCrying!!!!! Congratulations beautiful ladies! I couldn\u2019t be happier for you both,\u201d one friend said.<\/p>\n
Another said: \u201cStoppppp \ud83e\udd79\ud83e\udd79 soo cute!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Stevens\u2019 St Kilda teammates were excited over the \u201cbest news ever\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cOtis ya big cutie,\u201d Steph Chiocci said.<\/p>\n
Paige Trudgeon said: \u201cHe is perfect, congrats you two beautiful mummas. Otis has an army of aunties behind him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Motherhood came for Stevens after she recently opened up about losing her mother Ann to early-onset dementia in 2023 at just 52.<\/p>\n
Stevens, who is a Dementia Australia ambassador, told Code Sports last month she played \u201cfor her mum\u201d as she battled the disease for 13 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess for so long I had been able to get out onto the field and express myself, and almost separate what has been going on for me off the field,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI struggled a little bit in the 18 months after my mum passed to find that new purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stevens was included in the inaugural AFLW draft pick and joined St Kilda in 2022 after playing for Carlton since 2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AFLW star Nicola Stevens has welcomed her first child with her partner, Elise Rose, who gave birth to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,25912,64,63,55,639,66706,1625,588,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-144623","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-aflw","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-australian-football-league","13":"tag-australianfootballleague","14":"tag-family-life","15":"tag-lifestyle","16":"tag-sport","17":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}