Alex Fevola on baby, marriage, Brendan and future plans

WHILE a new baby for Brendan and Alex Fevola will be “icing on the cake” for their fractured fairytale, the former Mrs Fevola says she’s still a long way from the altar.

IF ANYONE had told Alex Fevola she would reconcile with her then troubled former AFL star husband Brendan, have another child together and live happily ever after five years ago she would have laughed in their face.

If they’d gone on to tell her there would be an outpouring of love and heartfelt congratulations for the couple she would never have believed it following years of negative exposure and public humiliation.

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But that’s exactly where the 41-year-old Runway Room founder and owner finds herself after the surprise announcement earlier in the week that she is expecting a sister for daughters Mia, 18, Leni, 12 and Lulu, 8.

“There was no inclination that was on the cards. I’m 41, that’s why I was so shocked. It wasn’t on my radar at all, we hadn’t planned it,” she reveals in an exclusive interview with the Herald Sun.

The family head to the races: Brendan and Alex with their children Leni, Mia, centre, and Lulu. Picture: Julie Kiriacoudis

After feeling unwell on a recent holiday in the US Alex decided to take a pregnancy test, not ever thinking it would come back positive.

“I thought I better just find out and got a test and it was positive, it was like straight away, bang, it was literally within five seconds the lines were up and I literally dropped it. I hadn’t even said to Brendan I’m concerned. He had no idea, it was a really big shock,” she says.

While Brendan, 37, was keen for another baby, Alex, now 13 weeks pregnant, says she wasn’t so sure.

The couple in their early days.

Fevola on field for Carlton.

“I’d thought we have three beautiful daughters and they’re pretty grown up now and I just didn’t think it would happen. I never felt in the right mind set to consciously make that decision so it really is a wonderful surprise because I don’t think I ever would have gone ‘Right, let’s try and do this’.”

After overcoming the initial shock, Alex says the discovery she is expecting another little girl in November with Brendan is the icing on the cake for their fractured fairytale.

“I look at the tumultuous life we’ve had and it’s bizarre. If anyone had said, ‘One, you’d get back with Brendan’, but two, ‘That you’ll get back together and have another baby’, I’d have been like, ‘No way’,” she says.

“I just felt that part of my life was over, it’s amazing, I feel like we’ve come full circle. Here we are all these years later back together and having another baby and genuinely happy.”

Brendan and Alex Fevola relaxing at home. Picture: Supplied.

She says the couple has been overwhelmed by the support and comments they have received.

“We get so many beautiful messages and support from strangers on social media, people being genuinely happy for us and genuinely inspired by our story,” she says.

“It’s so lovely because we didn’t always have that support, but I think what people connect with is that we did have a very bad time, we did legitimately break up for a couple of years and we divorced. It’s not like it was an on/off situation, we definitely went through terrible times and the relationship itself had some awful lows in so many different scenarios.”

The former footy star turned breakfast radio presenter and Footy Show regular guest took a long and circuitous route to redemption after his spectacular fall from grace into alcohol and gambling addiction, leaving Alex a single parent with no money.

“We did have that full two-and-a-half years apart and when we did start to see each other again, which was really just friendship for the kids in the beginning, it was literally like I’d met a new person. We had a completely renewed respect for each other and I think a lot if the animosity and resentment was gone and that’s how I was able to work through it.”

Growing the brood: the Fevola family. Picture: Alex Coppel

Alex admits to feeling a bit nervous about having another baby but she’s confident Brendan will be by her side through it all.

“There is the element of fear. I’ve been worried and stressed the whole time, since getting the results that I’m healthy and normal that’s one relief. You’re never totally relieved until the baby is out,” she says.

But she has no concerns that Brendan may revert to old habits.

“I feel like he appreciates his life too much now and the problem was when he was younger he took it for granted, now having lost everything he appreciates what he has. I don’t think he’d be that foolish to do anything to jeopardise any of that, he loves his job and his family too much.”

While there has been much talk about the couple remarrying after Brendan proposed two years ago, Alex says she thinks it’s unlikely they will ever walk down the aisle again.

“I said to Brendan I don’t have time, the thought of organising a wedding, and because we’ve been there and done that I just don’t know, it feels a bit embarrassing,” she says.

“I also think things are great, why go down that road? We’ve been married and we’re together, we have children, we have the same surname. I wouldn’t say never, but I just feel what’s the point, it’s just not a priority and certainly not now.”