Amanda Holden has bravely opened up about the loss of her baby son Theo, who was stillborn in 2011.
In a special BBC programme Dear NHS Superstars, dedicated to frontline heroes, the 49-year-old shared her heartbreaking story.
The Britain’s Got Talent judge remembered visiting her friend and midwife Jackie after noticing she had not felt a kick in a while.
“[Jackie] told me later that she couldn’t hear a heartbeat, and she opened the door and she went out and collapsed in the hallway,” she revealed.
“Luckily for us, an obstetrician was coming past and Jackie said to the obstetrician, ‘Please can you go in, I can’t hear the patient’s baby’s heartbeat’, and then I heard this guttural screaming.”
“It was the most bizarre thing that’s ever happened to me because it was me…”
“I didn’t know I was doing it. I had no control over myself, I thought it was another person making the noise,” she recalled.
“All these women were holding me, calming me down. I forgot entirely that I’d have to get the baby out and I’d have to give birth for our son.”
“I opted to go for a C-section because I just did not think I could go through a natural labour. Because you know that at the end, a fully formed little baby with absolutely nothing wrong with him apart from being asleep, is going to come out.”
Becoming visibly emotional, Amanda shared: “And again, all the way through it, I said, ‘No, I can’t hold it, I can’t hold it. I can’t hold a dead baby’.”
“I was absolutely terrified. Just as baby was going to come out, my husband Chris had to leave the room. He couldn’t bear it.”
“Jackie wrapped him up and I said, ‘Jackie, I can’t do it, I can’t hold him’, and Jackie said, ‘He’s absolutely gorgeous, Amanda. You need to see him’.”
“That’s when I felt him in my arms for the first time and realised I was still a mummy, even though he was fast asleep,” Amanda bravely continued.
“The thing that I always remember most about him was his perfectly-formed eyebrows, which all my children have.”
“I’ll do anything for that hospital because that’s where my son was born and that’s where we were treated with such care. Like we were family members is the best way to describe it,” she added.
