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Matildas midfielder Katrina Gorry welcomes ‘sweet baby boy’ with fiancee Clara Markstedt

<span>Katrina Gorry with her first child, Harper, who she had as a solo parent through IVF in August 2021.</span><span>Photograph: Scott Gardiner/Getty Images</span>
Katrina Gorry with her first child, Harper, who she had as a solo parent through IVF in August 2021.Photograph: Scott Gardiner/Getty Images

Katrina Gorry has welcomed a baby boy with fiancee Clara Markstedt, six weeks before the Matildas head to Paris for the 2024 Olympics.

Former Swedish footballer Markstedt delivered the baby on Sunday morning, and the couple announced the welcome on Wednesday.

“Our sweet baby boy Koby Peter David Gorry,” the midfielder wrote in an Instagram caption. “Big sister is absolutely in love and our hearts are so full.” The post tags a new Instagram account named “two_mini_gorrys”.

The post features photos of the new baby swaddled in blue and curled up with his two-year-old older sister Harper – who Gorry had as a solo parent through IVF in August 2021, before taking time away from the field postpartum.

Though she missed the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Gorry told Guardian Australia in 2023 her body “reset” after having Harper.

“Little niggles that I had before her have just gone away and never come back,” she said. “So it’s been pretty cool how it’s almost just refreshed my whole body.”

Related: Matildas gamble on fitness of star duo as squad named for 2024 Olympic Games

Before Gorry had her first child, the prospect of pregnancy invited uncertainty over her career, but the national team was “absolutely amazing from when I told them I was pregnant,” she said.

“That made me want to return at the best possible state that I could … to give them back that, because they gave so much to me in that time where they could have realistically just given up.”

Her second baby, Koby, has come six weeks before the Matildas make their fifth appearance at the Olympics. The Paris Games will be Gorry’s second Olympic Games after Rio 2016.

The announcement of baby Koby has seen an inundation of support.

“Stop it!!! Congrats guys. Sooo happy for your little fam,” Caitlin Cooper of Western Sydney Wanderers commented. Australian players Charli Grant and Remy Siemsen, and American player Carson Pickett, were among other athlete peers sharing their congratulations.