Wife of Geelong player Gary Rohan shares heartbreaking miscarriage experience

The wife of Geelong Cats star Gary Rohan has opened up about her heartbreaking experience as the couple expect their first child together.

Madi Rohan, the wife of Geelong Cats forward Gary Rohan, has shared her heartbreaking experience with miscarriage.

The couple announced in August they are expecting their first child together, which they called their “rainbow baby”.

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Madi has revealed she initially suffered a “missed miscarriage”, which happens when the body still thinks it’s pregnant even once a baby is lost.

“So I had what they call a missed miscarriage,’’ Rohan (nee Bennett) told the Missta Mums podcast.

“My body was still 100 per cent going ahead with the pregnancy and growing and hormones were elevating and doing everything they should have but my body hadn’t registered that I’d lost the baby. I kept growing and still having all of my symptoms.”

Madi said she had to endure an agonising two-week wait to be certain she had miscarried after the seven-week scan showed no heartbeat.

“The two weeks to wait for that second scan had literally driven me insane,’’ she said.

Gary and Madi Rohan at Geelong’s best and fairest awards. Picture: Mark Wilson

Madi and Gary Rohan are expecting their first child together. Photo: Instagram.

“Anymore waiting I couldn’t hack it.

“I started to get quite frustrated at my body — what are you hanging on for, why am I still feeling pregnant? If we have lost the baby then what’s going on, why is my body failing me? It’s like my body has missed the miscarriage.

“The maths I was doing … I was counting every hour to try and figure it out. What the correct dates and weeks would have been. I was googling every ultrasound and what it looks like at every week point.

“I just had to get through those two weeks. You don’t want to give up hope and if someone gives you that tiny glimmer you’re not going to give it up. We were never going to give up. The two weeks were torture just thinking of all the possible what ifs.

“I hadn’t bled and nothing had changed. They said they can confirm nothing had continued to grow and there’s absolutely no heartbeat and we’d lost the baby and no glimmer of hope left there.”

Gary Rohan with his partner Madi. Pic: Instagram

Madi said she was unsure whether or not to share her experience, but was determined to raise awareness around miscarriage.

“It was almost like I had to keep it secret because it’s not out there,’’ she said.

“Not that I felt alone, because I definitely had support, but I felt like a minority. I felt different. Hearing one in four, it’s so common, but you never really think it’s going to happen to you. You know it’s a risk, you never really think it’s going to happen to you.

“I think my emotional reaction told me what my gut was saying. It’s something you can’t understand unless you’ve been through it. You hear the stories and you definitely sympathise with others going through it but it hit me like a whole ton of bricks.

Gary Rohan plays for the Geelong Cats. Photo: Michael Klein.

Gary and Madi Rohan married last year. Pic: Instagram

“My heart broke at that point especially because I know there must have been women around me who’d been through this and I didn’t know and I wasn’t there to support them.”

“It is such a taboo topic. Before this pregnancy I had a miscarriage of my own and felt like there was nothing out there. There was nothing I could resonate with, nothing I could understand a bit about the process and how common it is.

“You’re not alone, one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage.”

Rohan shares two children with his ex-wife Amie, with the couple’s third daughter Willow Nevaeh dying just five hours after being born.

The heartbreaking death was a result of a fatal neural tube defect with no cure known as anencephaly.

Rohan officially popped the question to Bennett in July last year, 14 months after they went official with their relationship.

Their relationship went public in May 2021 and in touching posts they conveyed just how much they meant to each other as Bennett showed off her engagement ring to the world.

They tied the knot in December last year.

Originally published as Wife of Geelong player Gary Rohan shares heartbreaking miscarriage experience