Atomic Kitten star Liz McClarnon's heartbreaking health scare that left her worried she would never have kids as she reveals she's pregnant with her first child
Liz McClarnon has shared the happy news she is expecting her first child with her husband Peter Cho after a two-decade struggle to conceive.
The Atomic Kitten singer, 44, shared the happy news in an Instagram post on Tuesday, telling her followers she has finally become pregnant after years of 'painful' IVF.
Liz married her husband Peter in June 2023, but didn't reveal his identity to her followers until they celebrated their first wedding anniversary last year.
The performer's happy news comes after years of trying to conceive, and 16 years after she suffered a devastating health scare which left her worried she would never have children.
In 2009, Liz was rushed to hospital with a suspected ectopic pregnancy - which can be life threatening - but it turned out that some of her Fallopian tubes had glued themselves together.
She was in the middle of an interview that year when suddenly she felt extremely light-headed and unwell.
'I often feel faint because I forget to eat and survive on loads of cups of tea with two sugars, so I thought nothing of it,' she said at the time.
'I carried on with the interview, but afterwards I started to feel worse. I had cramping pains quite low down in my abdomen. I suffer from bad period pains, but this was even worse than that can be. It was really painful.'
Liz rang her GP, who told her to come straight into the surgery. 'By then I had a temperature, and when she touched my tummy it really hurt and felt hard.
'When I told her I had also had some irregular bleeding for the previous few days - something I'd never had before - she started to look quite concerned.'
Her GP then arranged for Liz to go to a private London hospital straight away for tests.
'I spent a lot of time in hospitals a few years ago when several of my family members died, all quite soon after one another, so I was frightened at the idea of going in,' she said.
Her then-boyfriend Rob Gros accompanied Liz to hospital, where she underwent a series of blood tests and scans. The results suggested she had suffered an ectopic pregnancy.
This is when a fertilised egg becomes implanted outside the womb, most often in the Fallopian tubes. It often causes abdominal pain and irregular bleeding.
If the pregnancy is not caught in time, the tube can burst, causing a huge loss of blood which can prove fatal. Around five women in the UK die each year as a result of this.
The embryo has to be removed surgically or dislodged with drugs.Sometimes the Fallopian tube will be removed, too, if it has beendamaged.
Only 50 per cent of women who have an ectopic pregnancy go on to have a successful pregnancy in the womb - either because they suffer scarring or lose a Fallopian tube.
'When the doctor said ectopic pregnancy, Rob shot me a really sad look. But at that time I didn't know much about it,' said Liz. 'I thought maybe you could still have the baby.
'Then a few minutes later a nurse came in to take yet another blood test and I asked her: "Do you always lose the baby in an ectopic pregnancy?" When she said "yes", all I wanted was to be able to have that child.
'Even though I had always been careful not to get pregnant, and we had never even discussed having a family, I suddenly really wanted to become a mother.'
Liz was told she would need surgery and was warned she might lose a Fallopian tube.
'The hospital was really busy that night, so they had to put me on a post-natal ward,' recalled Liz. 'There were babies everywhere and all I could think was: "Oh my God, I might not be able to have kids." It was really upsetting.'
When it was time to have her operation the next morning, Liz was terrified. 'I'd never had surgery before and I was scared of even having the anaesthetic. At one point, I got off the bed and refused to continue with it.
'Rob had to repeatedly calm me down. The surgeon kept coming in, saying: "Are we on or not?" I knew I had to have the operation - I was just nervous about it.'
During the operation, it emerged that Liz was not pregnant - instead, her symptoms were the result of her Fallopian tubes being stuck together.
If the tubes develop a kink or become blocked because of adhesions, it affects a woman's fertility and increases the risk of an ectopic pregnancy later.
Liz came round from the operation to find out she had not been pregnant after all.
'I felt disappointed that I had not been pregnant, but relieved that I still had the chance to start a family when I wanted to.
'The surgeon told me he had separated my fallopian tubes and said I was "good to go".'
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