Myleene Klass opens up about her four devastating miscarriages - and her miracle baby
Watch: Myleene Klass suffered a miscarriage on her radio show
Myleene Klass is no stranger to putting herself out there on TV - whether it's risking rejection on Pop Idol, showering in a bikini on I'm a Celebrity or showcasing her Dancing on Ice abilities.
Over the past 20 years, she's become a stalwart of the small screen, known for her presenting work, and a respected radio broadcaster who knows classical music as well as she knew a jaunty pop tune in her Hear'say days.
Now Klass, 43, is a mum of three, heading for midlife, and she has opened up in a very different way - one that she hopes might help other women who are struggling with miscarriage.
Talking to Psychologies magazine this month, Klass revealed that she had suffered four miscarriages, and that the pain has changed her perspective on life.
"I look at my body differently, because it's come through so much," she told the magazine.
Due to the hormones she was given when carrying her fourth child, Apollo, now two, she added: "I put on four and a half stone with him...that's a lot to carry."
While pregnant with Apollo, she had endless scans and admits she was even afraid to drink water, for fear of needing the loo then seeing blood.
"I know how ludicrous that sounds, but anyone who's been through miscarriage will know that stomach-tightening feeling when you pull down your knickers, thinking 'please, no blood'," she told the magazine.
Klass now has a family of seven with her partner Simon Motson, a PR executive – including her two daughters, Hero, 10, and Ava, 14, and and Motson's two children from his previous marriage.
She spoke movingly on Instagram last year about her miscarriages, which led to her making a new documentary, Myleene: Miscarriage and Me, and admits that filming "wasn't easy" and looking back at her diaries of the time showed "a spiral of absolute terror".
Read more: Myleene Klass shares heartbreak of suffering miscarriage while presenting live radio show
Previously she spoke about miscarriages, saying, her first baby loss was “howling at the moon territory” and of later ones, “the pain is just so guttural, it’s unbearable”.
Her last was live on air when she was presenting a show on Smooth Radio. With nobody to take over, her friend Lauren Laverne had to talk her through each link until it was over.
“I was on air. I went to the loo while the music was playing and there was blood everywhere and I didn’t know what to do – I had one hour left of my show,” she said.
“I rang Lauren Laverne and she said: ‘Do one link, take a breath, come out and call me.’ She got me through. I did the next link and called her. We counted the links.”
Klass added: “I would go out, sob and come back in, take a deep breath and speak. I don’t know what else I would have done. I was on air.”
In the new documentary, Klass meets women who have endured baby loss and calls for miscarriage to be taken more seriously, pointing out that the NHS is unable to investigate possible causes until a woman has gone through three miscarriages in a row.
"Normalising the conversation is...so powerful," said Klass, whose campaigning has already gained the attention of female MPs.
She hopes to ease fears and secrecy around miscarriage, and that women will "stop blaming themselves: for something over which they have so little control".
'Myleene: Miscarriage and Me' is on W during Baby Loss Awareness Week, 9-15 October
Watch: Chrissy Teigen: I Haven't 'Fully Processed' my 2020 Pregnancy Loss
