Congratulations to our Ultimate competition winner Bayley Brown!

Congratulations to our Ultimate Competition 2022 winner Baylee Brown! 

Christmas has come early for first-time mama-to-be Baylee Brown and her husband Michael this year, after winning over $23,000 worth of baby gear in OHbaby! Magazine’s 2023 Ultimate Competition.

Baylee, tell us about you and your partner and your pregnancy journey so far – how have you found it and when are you due?
My husband Michael and I are over the moon to be expecting our first wee pēpi in June 2024. Our pregnancy is especially precious to us as Michael has had to endure some challenging medical issues, including two kidney transplants - one in December 2015 and the other in July 2021. For his second transplant, I was actually able to give him one of my kidneys! Although this was such a blessing for us we did have some concerns around whether or not we would be able to get pregnant in future. In October, after missing my period I took a pregnancy test and what do you know - two lines were staring back at me! We were stoked! During my first trimester, I experienced many of the common symptoms - fatigue, nausea, a greater appreciation for dry toast with a bit of marmite! When OHbaby! editor Kristina phoned to say I had won the competition, I had just ticked over 14 weeks. As a school teacher, I am now looking forward to the summer holidays, getting up to not a lot and hopefully enjoying the second trimester glow that so many other wāhine have told me about!

Why did you enter our Ultimate Competition?
A friend from work had told me about the OhBaby Ultimate Competition and suggested that I enter! With big competitions, I feel like so many of us often write off entering as we don't think we will ever win but man, I am sooooo glad that I did enter! 

How did you feel when you got the call to say you’d won?
Honestly, I was in shock! It feels unreal because it is such a mammoth prize! It feels quite hard to process! Mike and I are genuinely just so stoked and so grateful. We are learning that setting up for a baby can be quite expensive and so this just feels like such a blessing. 

Do you have a message for our prize partners?

THANK YOU SO MUCH! This prize is unreal for first time parents who are still navigating their way around what we will actually need for a baby! Thank you so much for partnering with OhBaby! Such an amazing range of prizes and to win so close to Christmas time feels like a dream! Can't say thank you enough!!!