Stunning Jennifer Ellison is plainly in her element as a new mum and grins widely as she talks about her “little darling” five-month-old Bobby.
But as easy as she makes it seem, her first few hours as a mum were far from plain sailing. She endured a gruelling 92-hour labour before an emergency C-section.
And even then things didn’t go smoothly – she haemorrhaged during the op and nurses fought to get Bobby out for an exhausting 20 minutes.
While that might be enough to put most women off a bigger brood, former Brookie star Jen says she doesn’t scare easily – and she’s determined to have at least another two.
“I definitely want more, even after all that!” laughs Jennifer, 27. “It was horrible but I’ve always wanted three kids and you can’t expect everything to go smoothly all the time.
“Even when I was in the hospital I’d kind of got over it, it was weird. I was crying all the time, but I think all women do. You’re so tired and emotional. The nurse came over and asked if I was having flashbacks, like I’d been traumatised by the birth. But I told her I was fine and I wished I could go back and do it all again.
“She was totally shocked and said no one who’d had a birth like mine had ever wanted to go back!”
During her pregnancy, Liverpool lass Jennifer and husband Robbie Tickle, 31, had planned for a calm, natural water birth. She laughs at how different things turned out.
“We’d wanted to do it all lovely, in a birthing pool and all that. I thought I’d just go into hospital and pop it out.
“Obviously that didn’t happen!” she says.
Jennifer’s waters broke at 3am and four sleepless nights later, Bobby arrived at 9.45pm on February 4.
“I had literally no sleep for four nights running, but Robbie was with me the whole time,” she recalls. “He never left my side, thank God, I don’t know what I’d have done if he wasn’t there. I went as far as I could with it and even on Thursday morning I was in the pool just hoping it would be OK. But I wasn’t dilating and the pain was horrendous. The baby was too big and he got stuck.”
The next step was to give Jennifer an epidural. “I finally had a little sleep after that,” she recalls.
“Then I vomited, had another little sleep, another little vomit and it went on like that for hours – not very glamorous!
“My poor mum came in at one point and I just shouted, ‘I’m going to be sick!’
“They gave me this tiny little sick bowl and it filled up in a second.” Later that night the doctors decided Jennifer
wasn’t going to give birth naturally – so she had an emergency Caesarean.
“It was a
total nightmare,” she says. “When they cut me I haemorrhaged and then the baby got stuck.
“The nurse was trying and trying to pull him out, but it went on for 20 minutes and I could see it all.
“It was horrible, like plunging a toilet!”
Thankfully, Bobby arrived healthy, weighing 9lbs. And Jennifer is determined to remember the good parts of having a baby, rather than the horror of the birth.
“Well I loved being pregnant,” she says. “Although I didn’t feel sexy – you can’t, especially towards the end. I was absolutely humongous and you’ve got to roll around and flip on your side even to get off the bed!“But it’s been so worth it, Bobby’s a little darling, he’s so gorgeous. He’s a mix of me and his dad. He’s got my eyes but everything else is straight from Rob.”
The other big change in Jennifer’s life was her secret wedding to Robbie in October. The pair hit the headlines because they married in Mauritius without telling a soul – not even their families.
“It was gorgeous,” she says. “We have no regrets because we absolutely loved it. To be honest, we were worried we might come to regret it – not having my mum and family there might have ruined it a bit, but it was perfect.
“It was right for us. Getting married becomes about everybody else, but we wanted it just about the two of us.
“I was pregnant already and we knew once the baby arrived we’d have less time for each other, so we wanted this just for us. It was so romantic.”
But the couple had never planned a covert ceremony – in fact, their wedding plans were all pretty last-minute.
“One morning Rob headed off to work really early.
“Usually I’d just fall straight back to sleep, especially when I was pregnant. But then I saw I had a text and it was Rob.
“He’d written, ‘If I can get off work, will you run away and marry me?’ I just texted straight back, ‘Defo! x’
“How classy and romantic is that?” she laughs. “And two weeks later, we were off.
“As soon as I’d texted him back I was downstairs on the computer at half-six in the morning typing in, ‘Right, where does gorgeous weddings abroad?’ We were booked and sorted in two days.”
And despite being really close to her family, especially her mum, the couple decided not to tell anyone.
“We didn’t tell a soul,” says Jennifer. “The hardest was not telling my mum. Me and Rob were so close to blurting it all out, but we didn’t. We thought if people went ‘ooh you’ll regret doing it so quick’ or ‘you’ll regret not having everyone there’ then it would put a big cloud over it.
“And it was the best thing we ever did. Not one person was annoyed.
“My mum just burst into tears and said she was so happy. She said I couldn’t have married a nicer fella.”
And their prediction that they’d have less time together once the baby arrived has come true. “You don’t have all the time you used to. You’re tired, you’re ratty, but that’s normal. We’ve got a baby, not a little doll so it’s hard work. Though having our little family has made us much stronger as a couple and Rob’s a fantastic dad.
“We don’t really have lots of romantic nights out together, we don’t want to leave the baby. We have nice meals out and stuff, but we usually take Bobby with us.
“The only time we’ve been away since he was born was when we went to see Alicia Keys in Portugal.
“Rob got that as a surprise pressie for me on Mother’s Day. Actually talking about him so much makes me realise how lovely he is! You forget, don’t you? I’m going home to tell him and give him a
big kiss!”
And Robbie, who works for his family business in Liverpool, is 100% behind Jennifer’s acting career. When she tours the country for the stage version of Calendar Girls for eight weeks in autumn, he’ll be on the road with her and Bobby.
“I’m so looking forward to it,” grins Jennifer. “Obviously everyone asks about the naked thing, but the audience isn’t going to see everything. We’ve got things strategically placed to save our dignity! I’m playing the part Helen Mirren did in the film, so I’m behind a cake stand. But we’re going to need significantly bigger buns!”
Her current job, starring in a Daz Cleaner Close TV ad with ex-Hollyoaks hunk Paul Danan has been a real treat.
“It’s funny because I used to have a total crush on Paul when I was younger,” laughs Jennifer. “He was in Hollyoaks when I was in Brookie, so we were in the same studio. He was gorgeous and we’d walk past in the morning going ‘Ooh there’s Paul Danan!’
“But he’s like a brother to me now so it’s dead funny.”