Martine McCutcheon has revealed she struggled to have a child due to suffering multiple miscarriages.
The actress appeared as a panellist on ITV’s Loose Women when she spoke openly about her devastating losses.
Former EastEnders star Martine, 40, lost a baby back in 1999 but she has now revealed there have been more miscarriages, and she also confessed to wanting to have more children.
Martine and husband Jack McManus welcomed their son Rafferty in February 2015, although she said she feels she has been “cheated” out of spending the years with him because she had him in her late 30s.
The panellists were discussing a mother who recently welcomed a child at the age of 64, and Martine said she felt sad because they will “only have a certain amount of time together”.
She said: “I was in my late 30s when I had Rafferty and I tried for a long time to have him.
“I know that even as me at 40, I wish that I could have had him earlier, because I know that, whatever years, I know I’ll be cheated out of him.
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“My instant thing was I felt sad that they’re going to have a certain amount of time together.
“When you have wanted a child for a while and it’s so precious to you, I look at it from a very human emotional point of view of no one is ever going to be your mum again.”
Martine said she wants to have another child but will wait for over a year before she starts trying again, because she wants to put all her energy into enjoying her nearly two-year-old son’s early days.
Of her miscarriages, she said: “I didn’t have problems getting pregnant, I had problems keeping them.
“And because of the ME I just wasn’t strong enough, and it was a really good radar for me to know that my body was strong by the time I had Rafferty.
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“I knew I could hold a baby and I knew that in so many ways I would be better.”
Asked about her miscarriages by Ruth Langsford, Martine said: “Yeah, yeah I had lost babies and it was horrific every time.
“The minute that you have that baby you’re planning its future and what you’re going to do with it and you never sort of truly recover.”