West Coast Eagles star Nic Naitanui and partner Brittany Bown share their pregnancy news with STM

In all the beautiful chaos that is to come — the inevitable sleepless nights, the immense love coupled with the thrum of worry — Brittany Bown is sure of one thing. She will have, alongside her, a constant reminder to stop, take a breath, and seek out the bright side. That will come in the form of her partner, West Coast Eagles ruckman Nic Naitanui, whose relaxed attitude, Bown says, will provide a great balance to her information-hungry, well-researched approach as the couple embark on parenthood. “Nic is so fun, and I think he reminds me that sometimes that’s the best part of life,” she says, as the pair announce they are expecting their first child. “I feel very comfortable going into parenthood knowing our child is always going to have someone to play with and make them laugh. “He’s also not a panicker. He’ll say ‘oh well, we’ll sleep later,’ or ‘we’ll handle it’. I know as things come our way, if I’m stressed, he’s the type of person who will be OK, will say it’s not a big deal and calm the whole situation down.” Naitanui agrees that he’s never been one to sweat the small stuff and, in a quality that will come in handy in the coming months, he can survive on little sleep. Of his partner of 2½ years, Nic says she’ll be a natural mother. “I think she’ll be perfect. She’s pretty good around children and has a very caring nature. So I think she’ll fit perfectly in the role being a mother,” he says. STM can reveal the couple’s first child is due around the end of September, which, as any AFL fan knows, is the pointy end of the footy season. But with the Eagles languishing at the bottom of the ladder, the finals seem unlikely to be a factor as the couple approach the birth. Bown says the timing is perfect because it will allow them to spend time together, adjusting to the newborn baby bubble, during the off-season. The first inkling of the pregnancy, which was planned, came when Bown, a Pilates instructor and psychotherapist who writes a weekly wellness column in this magazine, started feeling dizzy after meals. “I’m quite in tune with my body, so I knew it was unusual for me to be getting dizzy,” she says. One summer’s morning, as the couple sat outside at home eating breakfast, Bown shared her suspicions with her partner, which were later confirmed with a pregnancy test that evening when he returned home from training. “We were both stoked and super surprised, we had expected a bit more of a journey (trying to fall pregnant),” she says. During STM’s photo shoot this week in a field in Perth’s south, Naitanui, 32, says he is very much at ease around children, and has “changed a million nappies over the years” as an uncle and father figure in his large Fijian family. “I think culture will play a big part (in raising our child),” he says. “I guess growing up in Australia, a big thing that I haven’t let go of is my Fijian heritage and my background there. So for me, I think it’d be good to teach my child Fijian. I’d love my kids to be bilingual and speak both languages. And also just have a sense of understanding of where they come from, and what’s come before.” That will involve sharing stories about Naitanui’s beloved mum, Atetha, who died in 2015, and whose work ethic, generosity and love for her family live on in Naitanui and his siblings. Following the loss of her husband to cancer, Atetha left Fiji for Australia when Naitanui and his twin brother, Mark, were toddlers. After settling in Perth, she worked two jobs, at a youth shelter and women’s refuge, and often opened her home to those in need. Bown, 28, also comes from a family passionate about helping others. Her father, Chris, established a charity, Thrive Integration, after 15 years as a police officer left him convinced the criminal justice system wasn’t working. The organisation helps former prisoners reintegrate into society and Bown has worked with her dad to providing counselling. She says her and Naitanui’s upbringings have given them a true sense of what is important. “In terms of Nic’s mum, the one thing I realised is how much she sacrificed and how much Nic sacrificed as a child, the things he didn’t get that his child will get,” she says. “I think (Nic) always looks around at things and feels very grateful that we get to be painting the nursery and buying the best stuff. His mum didn’t get to buy the nice things for her kids; she worked, she really hustled, so Nic can.” Nic agrees that his life experiences put footy, and all of its ups and downs, into perspective. “(At the club) we always talk about the roller coaster, you don’t get too carried away over the highs or too sad when there’s lows. So a lot of guys have different life experiences throughout their journey, whether it’s birth or death or things like that.” “Footy is a big part of your life, but it’s not the whole thing . . . it’s something that’s really important to me but at the same time, there’s a lot of things that happen away from the footy field that mean just as much.” Bown, now more than five months pregnant, is enjoying her growing belly and the flutter of kicks from their baby. The tricky first trimester — with its fatigue and nausea — was made worse when both Bown and Naitanui caught COVID. “I have a lot of faith in my body, but the thing that wasn’t nice about COVID is you can’t check on your baby, you can’t get a scan, you can’t go to the hospital. I wasn’t feeling any kicks by that stage, so I didn’t have that reassurance that it was wriggling around,” Bown says. “It wasn’t nice. It played on the same symptoms of first trimester: fatigue and achiness. It definitely hit me harder than it would have if I wasn’t pregnant but it was a good excuse to rest and spend some time together and not do too much.” During this time, she drew on the support and calm, light-hearted approach of her partner (“it’ll be fine, just get some sleep!”) but also on her own inner strength, honed from a journey of growth and self-discovery. It’s a journey she shares, with vulnerability and insight, with readers of STM. In last week’s column, she explained how she came to understand the importance of setting boundaries, admitting that her tendency towards compassion without them had left her feeling let down and exhausted. And today, she candidly reveals how trauma and pain from her past left her “petrified, sceptical and guarded” when she embarked on her relationship with Naitanui, as she found herself “always bracing for the worst-case scenario”. Bown feels passionate about showing this vulnerability with her readers, and says she hopes doing so resonates. “Coming into the relationship with Nic, I was quite broken, I suppose. I had to go through a lot of healing (from a past relationship). In the first six months of our relationship, I didn’t get to enjoy myself; I was bracing for it to be over, and trying not to experience that joy,” she explains. Ultimately, she says, she realised she had to face her fears and take responsibility for her own healing. “When I started to value the fact that I am my only need, and I’m the only one who can protect me and understand things through my eyes, I really never let that go,” she says. “It takes a lot of pressure off. In my articles, the way I do vulnerability is to say ‘in my experience, this worked, and maybe it will work for you, too’.” This self-belief is something she has carried into her pregnancy. “I’m staying true to myself, really researching things but not getting carried away with all the ‘you should do this, and that,’ but feeling like I have a really strong voice,” she says. “I feel really confident now in my ability to stand up for myself and what I want.” The pair was introduced by a mutual friend, a chaplain, about five years ago. While they hit it off, neither was in the right place for a relationship at that time, and they reconnected later. Bown says marriage is on the cards, but they are both ready to become parents. “We’ve got a lot of room for a baby in our lives right now... the other stuff will happen but we’re not going to rush into it.” They know the gender of their baby, and will reveal it at their upcoming baby shower. They have shared their news with loved ones and the tight-knit Eagles family. Naitanui laughs as he recalls the dads among the team coming to training on a Monday morning exhausted because of sleepless nights with kids. Bring it on, he says — all of it. “Kids are the most honest human beings out there. Everyone else sometimes has an objective, or puts on a facade at times; children never really do that,” he says. “They love you for who you are, no matter what. And they’ll say it how it is. “Family is the biggest thing, so to start my own is something that’s pretty special, and something I’m excited about.”