Former Atomic Kitten Liz McClarnon has revealed she would be willing to donate eggs to couples in need after an ectopic pregnancy scare left her in fear that she may not be able to have children.
McClarnon fell ill last month, but put it down to extreme tiredness after simultaneously preparing for the launch of her solo career, writing a novel and moving into acting.
According to a report in the Daily Mail, it soon became clear that she had a serious gynaecological problem, at first thought to be an ectopic pregnancy - where the impregnated egg implants outside of the womb and often in the fallopian tube. Tests revealed that it wasn't an ectopic pregnancy, rather that her fallopian tubes had glued themselves together. The singer had to have emergency surgery.
In an interview in the Daily Mail, McClarnon says the whole experience has left her sensitive to the emotional agony that infertile couples can go through, and she wants to help. "Having thought even briefly that I might never be able to have my own children made me realise what agony that would be, and made me want to help people in that situation," she says.
McClarnon lives with her partner, businessman Rob Gross, 41, and has apparently long dreamed of having a family, though the couple had not yet discussed having a family together. Of the prospect of having an ectopic pregnancy, Liz says in the interview: "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."
When McClarnon recovered from the emergency surgery she visited a friend at a health show, and on a neighbouring stall found leaflets about egg donation. "My initial reaction was: 'That's a bit full on.' But I thought about what might have happened to me, and about friends who are trying to conceive with IVF and having no luck...Thinking about this made me realise that egg donation would be a really good thing to do."