‘I’m terribly sorry, Amanda, but the baby’s heart is not beating. He’s gone’
The Britain’s Got Talent judge, 42, endured a still birth in February 2011 after suffering a miscarriage just the year before.
The star went for a scan two years ago when she was seven months pregnant after failing to feel her baby kick for a day.
Recalling the moment doctors told her the tragic news in her new autobiography, Amanda writes: “The leading obstetrician said: ‘I’m terribly sorry, Amanda, but the baby’s heart is not beating. He’s gone’.
'I cried for his life, for the hope and joy and expectation that had been taken from us’
Amanda said that how she would break the news to her daughter, Lexi, was ‘all [she] could think about.’
‘From somewhere in the hospital, I could hear the most horrendous screams. I presumed it was from the labour ward until I realised I could hear my daughter’s name, ‘Lexi, Lexi, Lexi!’ being shouted out animalistically. It was me wailing and making the most horrific guttural noises,’ she writes.
The star also reveals she was terrified her musician husband Chris Hughes – who was not at the hospital with her - would blame her for their son’s death when he heard the news.
She writes: ‘My poor darling husband was somewhere in London in ignorant bliss. Suddenly, stupidly, I thought he would blame me. It had to be my fault, right? Everything came tumbling down.’
After the birth, Amanda said she held the ‘perfect’ baby in her arms and nuzzled the immaculate ‘little face and body’.
‘When my baby was finally delivered they laid him in my arms as my tears flowed over him. His little face and body were perfect. He was nearly 3lb in weight (which is totally viable, and bigger than most premature babies) and felt like a young cat in my arms.
‘I rubbed noses with him and smelled his face and his neck and I just cried and cried. I cried for his life, for the hope and joy and expectation that had been taken from us.’
Although the obstetrician advised Amanda to wait 18 months before trying for another baby, Amanda – who was desperate for a sibling for their daughter - said she begged Chris to let them try again just minutes after their baby was stillborn.
The couple welcomed their second child, Hollie, in January 2012, after Amanda nearly died during the birth.