Silver Ferns captain Ameliaranne Ekenasio has revealed she will miss the remainder of the ANZ Premiership as she is pregnant with her second child.
Ekenasio confirmed the news this afternoon, revealing she was actually pregnant while she led the Silver Ferns to their first Constellation Cup series triumph over rivals Australia in nine years back in March.
She said she an inkling during the series she was pregnant but didn’t confirm it until shortly after.
“Looking back on Con Cup I was really proud to have been a part of that campaign, to lead that campaign and to obviously bring home the cup,” Ekenasio said.
“It was such a big moment for us. We worked such a long time for it, so to find out I was pregnant at the same time felt like even more of an achievement for me personally.
The Silver Ferns captain spoke to Kimberlee Downs about her big year to date.
“I played that whole tournament pregnant as well. It was definitely tough, but at the end of it I looked back and was really proud of what we did.”
Ekenasio added she was over the moon that her three-year-old son Ocean will be a big brother to another boy later this year.
The news comes after Ekenasio opened up about her recent mental health struggles in March where she said therapy saved her life.
“I know when I’m red flagging but honestly it still takes so much courage for me to reach out - reach out anyway, I promise it’s always better to go early,” she wrote at the time.
“I’ve been seeing a therapist for a while now to just keep me afloat.”
Ekenasio said her happy news won’t distract her from goals that lie ahead though.
“We’ve got a plan set in place which is cool and exciting because the planner, goal-setter, athlete part of me likes to look long-term and the plan is to come back and put myself in a position where I’ll be able to contest a spot for the Comm Games (2022) and the Netball World Cup (2023).
“That’s looking long-term, but I’m not too stressed about it now. I’ll get to that point when it comes to it, but definitely there’s a lot of hard work to get back to that place.”
Replacement shooter Ivana Rowland will stand in for Ekenasio with the Pulse for the rest of 2021.
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