First Dates’ f irst baby
They show. met Then on just the seven hit TV weeks later came a little surprise. Now the proud parents tell their very modern love story... THE NIGHT OF LOVE AT FIRST BITE
CRADLING their cherished newborn in their arms, Aarron Stewart and Ibiba Mudada smile happily as they proudly present their baby daughter for her first photo shoot. Weighing a whopping 9lbs 4oz, Aziza, whose name means precious, was born with a shiny thatch of black curls three weeks ago. Unsurprisingly, her doting parents are utterly besotted. ‘We barely put her down,’ says Ibiba. ‘She is the star in our home now.’
But it is her parents’ five minutes of stardom that makes little Aziza one of a kind.
For she owes her existence to their appearance on the hit Channel 4 dating programme First Dates, in which total strangers are matched by a team of researchers and meet up for an initial encounter in a London restaurant.
Aziza, who was born on April 22, is not only the first baby the series has produced, but was conceived unexpectedly just seven weeks after Aarron and Ibiba first laid eyes on one another under the glare of the cameras. Indeed, theirs could hardly be a more modern love story: a young couple with three children between them from previous relationships, put together by a reality television show and, less than two months later, the surprise of an unplanned baby on the way.
If it sounds an inauspicious start to a true love story, then the couple are the first to admit that it has all been rather, well, hurried.
Their first date was on June 10 last year but by the time the programme was broadcast on October 31, Ibiba was already pregnant.
‘It’s true that our meeting and the speed with which we’ve started a family is certainly far from traditional,’ says Ibiba, 28. ‘And it is hardly ideal to do everything so fast. But that is the nature of modern Britain. Things move at a much faster pace these days.’
For his part, Aarron, 32, is determined to do right by his new family, having admitted on the show to a misspent youth that saw him jailed for a year when he was 20.
‘Right now Aziza is the most important thing in our world,’ says Aarron, 32.
‘But convention and tradition are both very important to us so buying a home and getting married will be our next goals.’
What cannot be doubted, as viewers of the show can attest, is the instant spark of attraction when they met.
‘Our decision to go on First Dates was the best of our lives,’ says Ibiba. ‘And very few people are lucky enough, as we are, to be able to sit down and watch over and over the very first second we set eyes on each other. We both genuinely believe it was practically love at first sight.
‘When we are pensioners I want to be able to remember that first moment and recall the way my heart skipped a beat the instant I saw Aarron.’
Ibiba, a care worker, applied for the show after growing tired of meeting men who didn’t share her views or morals. Born in Bristol to Jamaican parents – a social worker mother and youth worker father – Ibiba found herself pregnant at 18 by her childhood sweetheart. When the relationship failed, Ibiba and her daughter Chenai, now 10, moved in with her sister.
Meanwhile across Bristol, Aarron was working hard to build up his business designing car interiors, which left little time for socialising. Having separated from the mother of his two children – a son, Latham, six, and daughter, Tia, nine – he was living with a flatmate who suggested he go on the programme.
In a strange coincidence Aarron and Ibiba later learned that his father, Kenroy, and her mother, Mufuane, both Jamaican-born social workers, had been colleagues for ten years.
Yet Ibiba and Aarron’s paths had never crossed.
On their televised blind date,
The couple admit it has all been rather hurried
viewers saw Ibiba arrive first, dressed in a black and floral jumpsuit, and then anxiously toy with a cocktail. When Aarron arrived, dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt, she says she knew the date was going to be a success.
That’s partly thanks to those working behind the scenes on the television programme, with producers going to great lengths to ensure a prospective match.
Would-be daters have to fill in a detailed two-page online application before going through a gruelling round of interviews. Such is its popularity that for the current series, they have had 205,000 applicants. They come from a variety of backgrounds but all have one simple thing in common: they are looking for love, and are happy to conduct their search on television. Once they have been accepted, the team spend weeks matching them with a partner based on beliefs and values and then the pair meet for their on-camera first date. In Aarron and Ibiba’s case there was instant chemistry, matched with a few understandable nerves. Even so, she says: ‘I was instantly attracted to Aarron’s smile and his lovely eyes. I just knew it was going to be the start of something important.’ There was a difficult moment when Aarron candidly told Ibiba that 12 years ago he served several months in prison after being convicted of actual bodily harm for hitting another man. ‘It was something that happened when I was very young and headstrong,’ he says. ‘I was foolish and I regret it. It is not something that would ever happen today. I’m much older and wiser now – I’m a family man. But I wanted Ibiba to know.’ Many women would have been put off, but Ibiba says: ‘He was a young man, and I knew if he had any violent tendencies now I would pick them up quickly. We’re all entitled to make one young and silly error.’ Their date was so successful that the pair were last to leave the res- taurant. Reluctant to part company, they went to a shisha bar to chat for another couple of hours and Ibiba turned down the hotel room she had been promised by the production company, opting to return on the train to Bristol with Aarron. Unlike some modern romances, however, they shared just a chaste kiss that night before going home separately.
The couple arranged to meet again with a second date held over lunch and, later, went out to concerts to indulge a shared passion for live music. Soon the relationship turned physical, with Aarron telling Ibiba he was in love with her. ‘We both knew this was the most serious romance that either of us had had,’ Aarron says.
Before long their children had been introduced and the pair became inseparable. The pregnancy, however, was not something either had prepared for.
‘Neither of us particularly drinks but one night I went round to see Aarron and his flatmate gave me a rum and coke,’ Ibiba recalls. The drink tasted foul and within a few moments she fell fast asleep, feeling ill when she woke later.
Aarron joked, asking if she could be pregnant. ‘Absolutely not,’ she replied. But the next day she wondered if the contraception had let her down. ‘I so didn’t think I was, so I just bought a cheap pregnancy test kit from a pound shop,’ she recalls. ‘When it said I was having a baby I was stunned. I thought I’d better get a more sophisticated test kit. When that, too, was positive, I wasn’t sure how Aarron would take the news as he had said before that more children were not on his agenda.’
That night, as she was getting into bed, she nervously pointed at her ever so slightly rounded tummy and stammered. ‘Er, there’s a baby in here.’ Initially Aarron thought she was joking but when she convinced him it was true, he was ecstatic. ‘Saying you don’t particularly want more kids is one thing,’ he explains. ‘But confronted with the emotion of knowing the woman you love is carrying your child – that is something else entirely.’ Determined they were in this for the long term, the pair started househunting together and soon moved in to the rented threebedroom house they now share.
Ibiba said: ‘By the time the show was broadcast I was already pregnant, of course, and when we first saw it I already had Aziza in my tummy. It sent shivers down my spine to think that one day our daughter will be able to watch the second her mum and dad met.’
Two weeks after her due date Ibiba was induced and after a long labour, Aziza was born. ‘Aarron was with me all throughout the labour, rubbing my back and mopping my brow,’ she says.
‘The instant he saw her he said: “Wow. She’s huge”.’
For the past three weeks the pair have been growing accustomed to being new parents again. ‘She sleeps a lot, but one kiss from her doting dad and her eyes open,’ says Ibiba.
Seeing their love for one another, it’s impossible not to warm to the couple – a feeling shared by many viewers of First Dates. Ibiba says: ‘We’ve been inundated with letters and emails from wellwishers and just last Sunday, when we took Aziza out for some fresh air, a lady rushed over and hugged us. She told us our story was truly inspirational, saying: “You two have restored my faith in love.”’
Given the number of couples created on reality television shows who go on to part company shortly afterwards, one can’t help but hope they prove the exception.
Ibiba believes firmly that her new family will flourish.
‘Never in a million years would either of us have believed we would fall in love at first sight. And certainly not on national television. I certainly didn’t think it was possible. But it happened to us.’
‘I believe our new family will flourish’