Siobhan Marshall never knew she'd become pregnant during a global pandemic. Photo / Supplied
In her own words, Outrageous Fortune star Siobhan Marshall, 37, shares how she and her actor hubby escaped Hollywood to expand their family.
With all the huge changes 2020 brought to everyone's lives, my husband Millen Baird and I put one extra thing on our plates – baby number two.
We already had a mischievous little 2-year-old girl who had been begging for a sibling, so Mills and I thought we'd expand our wee family and try for a second baby. Little did I know this would mean being pregnant during an international move and a global pandemic.
Remy Rose, our little daughter, is an IVF baby. Four years ago, we went through the procedure to make a family through Fertility Associates. We were lucky enough to make multiple embryos, which we were then able to freeze. One of those embryos became Remy and another is our new baby, who is growing nicely and on the way in June.
It's crazy when I think about it – baby number two was from the same "batch" as Remy, but there will be almost three years between them. Isn't science amazing?
When we decided to start going down the baby road again at the end of 2019, Mills, Remy and I were living in Los Angeles for work. We planned to take a trip back to New Zealand in April 2020, in time for my sister's wedding, and while we were there, have another go at IVF.
Unfortunately, Covid had other ideas. The world turned upside down. My sister postponed her wedding, and Mills and I cancelled our trip. We hunkered down in LA for what would turn out to be six long months of isolation, "waiting for this whole Covid thing to blow over".
Well, we waited and waited, and we saw things getting worse and worse in LA. We were glued to the news, watching case numbers in our city skyrocket. Out of our apartment window, we watched peaceful protests turn sour and shops being set on fire.
The final straw was when, after six months of being mostly inside, with Mills and I entertaining Remy as best we could, we noticed our confident little girl had started acting a bit fearful. With our family's best interests in mind, we decided it was time to head home to Aotearoa.
Remy and I returned at the beginning of August 2020 and did our time at an Auckland isolation hotel in Ellerslie. I was dreading it, but once we were there, the time actually went fairly quickly. I look back now with really fond memories.
The staff there were doing great work and could not have been more kind. Remy turned two on our second day and a whole lot of the staff, including army soldiers, nurses, Ministry of Health workers and air force personnel, showed up outside the door to our hotel room and sang her Happy Birthday. They even left behind a birthday cake.
It was pretty special and such an amazing welcome back to New Zealand. Although it was bittersweet to leave behind friends and opportunities in LA, it was so good to be home.
Because of work, Mills wasn't able to join us until the end of September. It felt like we were separated for ages, even though it was only two and a half months. Because all the isolation units in Auckland were full, when he got back, Millen had to go all the way to Wellington for his 14 days of quarantine. Needless to say, Remy and I were over the moon when we saw him striding towards us at Auckland Airport.
Because we'd already been through IVF the first time around, we were pretty sure getting pregnant again would take a while. Having another baby was still very much on our minds, so we decided to give IVF another crack, even though we weren't yet totally settled in. What was the likelihood of it working again first pop? Surely it would take a few goes?
Nope! We were so happy – and a little shocked! – to be successful on our first try.
As you can imagine, the last few months have whizzed on by, with us juggling work, getting ourselves settled and making sure Remy has a routine, as well as preparing for our new addition. It's been a blur of pregnancy fun.
It hasn't all been roses – whoever called it morning sickness was wrong because I was sick all day and all night. The first few months were rough on that front, but I'm out the other side now and feeling much less sorry for myself.
Although none of this has happened on the timeline we'd thought it would, we all feel incredibly lucky to be expecting a new member of our family and to be safely back home in New Zealand.
Remy is super happy to be back. She loves having more space and playing outside – she's a real little Kiwi! Having spent that time in America during Covid, we don't take a single second of all the freedom we have here for granted.
There were some good things to come out of all those months of lockdown in Los Angeles. I had a lot of time to think about all the things I wanted to do when I got out from inside those four walls. One of these things is to direct a film – something I've wanted to do since I was a spring chicken.
So, in those rare moments to myself, mostly while Remy was sleeping, I wrote a short film. It's a quirky love story about a shy shopkeeper called Lorraine whose closest confidante is an outdated female mannequin named Quinn. When the men's clothing store across the arcade opens for business, Lorraine is intrigued by the handsome new shop owner George and his male mannequin Manny.
Lorraine and George then embark on a competitive but playful game of dress-up with their mannequins, and their interactions gently encourage Lorraine out of her shell.
But when disaster strikes, leaving Lorraine a vulnerable mess, can she be brave and reach out to someone? A human being, that is?
The film is all about how, in life, the most important thing is the connection we make with other people.
Lorraine's story came from me wanting to connect with all the people I was missing at the time. Writing it was a bit of an escape for me – a romantic, magical world I would go to in a stressful time – and I hope everyone who watches it will get to experience that same feeling. A bit of extra romance and magic is something we all need in 2021.
As one of the main themes of the film is being brave and stepping out of your comfort zone to connect with people, I decided to step out of my comfort zone by launching a Boosted crowd-funding campaign to raise the money needed to shoot it.
You can check out the project and maybe even help us make this a reality by donating here. (Thank you!)
We're all set to film in April and I'll be taking on the challenge of directing while seven months pregnant. Of course, taking a big step towards something new is always a little daunting, whether that's a baby or an artistic project – or, in my case, both.
But after everything we've already come through in the last year, I feel like this is nothing. With the help of my incredibly talented and supportive team – including Millen and our wonderful friend Florence Hartigan as producers – I'm feeling really excited and positive.
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