Chasing her two gorgeous children around the garden late last year during an exclusive photo shoot with New Zealand Woman’s Weekly, Bernice Mene says she felt weary and out of sorts. “I wasn’t 100%,” she recalls, as her husband Dion Nash fossicks around their Auckland home unearthing kids and cricket bats for a family trip to the beach. “But I put it down to being tired from constantly racing around after the children.”

However a few days later, Bernice says, telltale nausea set in and she just knew – she was pregnant with baby number three. Netball legend Bernice (34) and former Black Caps star Dion had not, says Bernice, been “actively trying” for another child but “We hadn’t been not trying either. We decided to leave it to chance.”

What happened was that Bernice got pregnant – fast! Her little boy or girl is due on India’s second birthday in June and although it’s happening sooner than the family expected, everyone’s delighted.

“I was in Dargaville when I found out I was pregnant for sure,” says Bernice. “Dion was away overseas for work, so I took the kids up north to see his family. And one afternoon I snuck away to the supermarket and bought a test, then found a quiet moment to take it.”

Bernice then had to keep her news secret for several more days until she had a chance to speak to Dion, who was in Los Angeles working for vodka brand 42 Below. Even the children – Solomon (3) and India (19 months) were none the wiser because, laughs Bernice, Solomon and his “big mouth” could not be relied on to keep the news under wraps. “He would have been the first one telling people ‘My mum is having a baby!’

“So,” says Bernice, “on the drive back to Auckland, I gave Dion a quick call, and he just said, ‘Really? How did that happen?’ It defi nitely took him by surprise. I think it was good that he had a long fl ight back to Auckland because it gave him time to get his head around it and now he’s really excited.”

But Bernice was worried. “I was already so big,” she says, “that I was convinced we were having twins! I went to have a scan at 13 weeks and I was really nervous. I’d popped out and I felt huge – all the elasticity in your skin goes by your third pregnancy – and I also knew that the likelihood of twins increases as you get older. Also, Dion didn’t want to get a ‘people mover’ if we ended up having two more!”

Bernice expressed her fears to the radiographer, who was able to pass the scanner over her blossoming tummy and confirm the presence of just one, healthy, wriggly baby. Laughs Bernice, “I came back home, rang Dion, and said, ‘Don’t worry – the car stays!’”

Over the Christmas and New Year period, which was spent darting between Christchurch, where Bernice’s family is based, Auckland and Dargaville, Bernice and Dion were able to share their happy news with family and friends. “The kids got lots of practice with my brother’s 10-month-old, Marley. After a few days of ignoring him they started to include him – passing balls and toys to him – which was lovely.”

Sol, says Bernice, has a gentle and nurturing nature and understands more fully than India the impact a newborn will have on the family. “He imagines the baby is going to be another little girl, just like Indi, because that’s what he knows,” Bernice smiles. “But he’s got the timing all wrong. The other day he asked me, ‘Mum, is the baby coming now?’ When I told him ‘not yet’, he said, ‘In four minutes?’”

The only downside to the surprise pregnancy is that Bernice once again had to put big summer celebrations to one side. “It would have been the first Christmas in years that I wasn’t either pregnant or breastfeeding and could have enjoyed a drink. Instead, I seemed to be carboloading – maybe that’s why I’ve ‘bloomed’!”

So, Bernice spent a quiet New Year’s Eve at a bonfi re on the same beach on Waiheke Island where she and Dion were wed. “At about 9.30pm the kids were pretty tired so Dion said, ‘Why don’t you put them to bed then pop back?’ But I was so knackered that I crashed out next to them!”

As the Mene-Nash clan prepares to leave the house for their beach outing, Bernice considers how she’ll manage when there are not two, but three, little ones to dress, feed and entertain each day. “When I think that I’m going to have three under the age of four, I do feel a bit panicky,” says Bernice with a nervous grin.

“I was up with Indi four times the other night because she’s cutting teeth and I thought, ‘Gosh, how am I going to do this when we have a new baby as well?’ But we’ll cope, and those fi rst diffi cult months will soon be over.”

And between now and then, there’s some good old-fashioned retail therapy to look forward to. Bernice is shunning her old pregnancy clothing and starting over. “They’re all stretched and out of style and I can’t face wearing them for a third time,” she says, “So I’m going shopping!”