Love Island series one winner Jessica Hayes has opened up about losing her baby at five months during lockdown, calling the period “the hardest months of my life”.
Since the show, Jessica has found love with now fiancé Dan Lawry and the couple welcomed first son Presley 19 months ago.
But days after announcing her second pregnancy last year Jess found out she’d lost the baby – who she called Teddy – and has now opened up for the first time about “the worst thing in the world”.
Speaking of the moment she realised she’d begun bleeding, she said, "I didn’t panic but rang the hospital and they asked me to come in to check me over. [When I got to the hospital] they kept checking Teddy and there was nothing wrong with him.
"So at first, I was quite relaxed. They just couldn’t explain where the bleeding was coming from. Then I was watching Netflix when my waters broke."
10 beautiful stillbirth & miscarriage poems to help grieving mothers
Stillbirth and miscarriage poems - slider
1 of 11stillbirth
2 of 111) Precious Little One
3 of 112) An Angel Never Dies
4 of 113) A Million Times
5 of 114) I'll Be There
6 of 115) Silent Child, by Kelly Lancor
7 of 116) Today Was The Day
8 of 117) These Are My Footprints, by Tamara Barker
9 of 118) Angel Of My Tears
10 of 119) Oh Precious, Tiny, Sweet Little One
11 of 1110) The Moment You Left Me
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“I wasn’t sure if I wanted to see him,” she told OK! magazine, of making the difficult decision to see him after his birth.
“I didn’t know what to expect or what a baby looks like at 20 weeks. It was hard to get my head around. Then they took me to the bereavement suite and in the end, I knew, of course I needed to see him. He was my son. My mum saw him as well and then they let Dan come and say goodbye. That was the hardest thing in the world.”
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“I felt like I owed it to him to see him. He’s as much my son as Presley. I think the hardest thing was seeing him so small but so perfect. He was like a little doll. Seeing your child and not being able to take them home is the worst thing in the world.”
Announcing the heart-breaking news on Instagram at the time, Jess wrote, “To our little Teddy, I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep you safe for a little while longer. I’m sorry I couldn’t take you home. I’m sorry we had to say goodbye this way, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. You were strong but my body wasn’t.”