Pregnant Adele Silva has spoken to Lorraine Kelly about her excitement as she nears her due date after a series of heartbreaking miscarriages.
The former Emmerdale star sat down on Lorraine's famous couch and opened up about her struggle to conceive, saying she wanted to reassure other women struggling with fertility issues that there is 'light at the end of the tunnel'.
"I think the reason why I've been so vocal and quite open on it is because quite often you see things like 'My pregnant joy', 'I've had an amazing pregnancy!'. And it's not like that for everybody," she explained. "It's actually quite nice to go 'No, I haven't had a great time'."
Now, with just over six weeks to go before her due date, Adele told Lorraine that she finally feels able to get excited about the impending arrival.
The 34-year-old told Lorraine that after the NHS were unable to get to the bottom of the miscarriages, she consulted private doctors, who uncovered multiple thyroid and blood issues that were causing her body to reject embryos.
With a strict course of medication to regulate her medical problems, Adele successfully fell pregnant - but kept the news secret until she reached 22 weeks.
Even though she and fiancé Oliver Farber are overjoyed to be expecting their baby, Adele confessed that it had been difficult to enjoy her pregnancy after years of heartache.
"Each stage has been bittersweet because although you're like 'brilliant I've got to this point and that point' you're still not out of the danger zone," she said.
"I do appreciate how lucky I am and don't want people to think 'oh she is really ungrateful'. It's just when you've been through that you guard yourself."
Adele played troublemaking vixen Kelly Windsor in the ITV soap from 1993 to 2000, and has returned for two further stints since then.
She was due to return once again in 2014 but decided to turn down the opportunity on health grounds, as doctors had advised her to take it easy during pregnancy.
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