Huge congratulations are in order for EastEnders actress Kellie Shirley and her husband Phil Davies as she announces she is pregnant with her third child at the age of 41.
Kellie shared the news with OK!, revealing the ‘shocking’ moment she found out she was expecting.
She revealed she was filming for CBeebies during the summer when the on-set medic advised her to take a pregnancy test.
“It was during that really hot weather in the summer. We couldn’t have fans on during filming because of the sound quality and we were filming quite high up – and heat rises. I felt terrible”.
Kellie continued, “I was literally on my hands and knees feeling horrendous and the on set medic called John, said, ‘Are you sure you’re not pregnant?’. I was like, ‘Oh no, I’m hardly seeing my husband! It’s just this heat’”.
“Then I was being sick for a couple of weeks and he said, ‘Go and get a pregnancy test’, so I did. It came back positive straightaway. I was like, ‘Oh my God, John was right!’ It was a really lovely surprise. I feel very lucky.”
The actress, who is due in March, announced that she is expecting a little boy. “As the pregnancy was a shock, I felt like I wanted to be able to connect with the baby more. I didn’t have a preference. I just wanted the baby to be healthy”.
The In The Long Run star shared the exciting news with her seven-year-old twins, Pearl and Louis, when she was 18 weeks pregnant and starting to show. The siblings had very different reactions, with Pearl being very excited but Louis worried that Kellie will ‘love the baby more than him’.
“I wanted to wait because I was so conscious of something happening,” she says. “I’m a realist and didn’t want to get carried away. But Pearl had been looking at me funny for a few weeks as I’d been getting a bit of a belly.”
The 41-year-old says that this pregnancy is more tiring than when she was expecting her twins. “Last time was such a breeze in comparison. Being older this time around, I feel absolutely floored”.
She shared how worried she was about co-workers’ reactions as she is an older mum but revealed that when on set, crew were very accommodating to her. “When I found out, I didn’t tell people at work – I kept really quiet about it. I was just getting my head around it. Being an actress and freelance, you think, ‘Will people view me differently? Has the world moved on?’”.
We wish Shirley the best with the rest of her pregnancy and can’t wait to see what she names her son as she hasn’t chosen a name yet, but her daughter has an idea.
“At the moment she wants to name him Barry. We haven’t chosen a name yet, but it won’t be Barry”.
