Stacey Solomon felt "hopeless" before the birth of her son Rex.
Stacey Solomon
The 'Loose Women' star had suffered from postnatal depression following the birth of her oldest son Zachary, now 11, so alerted her midwife to her low mood last year and was able to access mental health services after she'd delivered her and partner Joe Swash's baby last May.
She recalled: "I said, 'I don't feel great, I feel really teary, I feel a little bit hopeless,' so she put me on the maternity mental health list, which meant as soon as I gave birth, I had a counsellor to talk to."
Stacey - who also has Leighton, seven, with a previous partner - admitted giving birth to Rex early compounded things because she felt "guilty" and also sad at missing out on certain things towards the end of her pregnancy because she didn't carry him to term.
She told Grazia magazine: "I was so paranoid about him bot being ready to be in the world and I felt overwhelmed that I ha this tiny life in my hands and I didn't feel like I was doing a great job of nurturing it.
"For the last 10 weeks I was like, 'I can't wait to meet the baby' and you almost wish it out.
"Then I felt really guilty. Sometimes, we set ourselves up for this perfect ideal scenario and when it doesn't go that way, it's hard to deal with.
"I wanted to have pictures with the bump and Joe - silly things that aren't important.
"I have birth and we were both safe and it was OK and that's what I should have taken from it but I missed my pregnancy. I just felt really funny."
While the 30-year-old star has won praise for her candid Instagram posts about the realities of parenthood, including breastfeeding struggles and lacking in sleep, she insisted that was the only content she had to offer her fans - but she is still amazed by some of her own revelations.
She said: "There was nothing else I could have put out.
"I wasn't feeling the way some people feel after their baby. I just thought, what's the point trying to hide it? I'm actually really glad I went with it. Even though now I look back and think, 'I can't believe I said that.'
"But it was a massive help for me, because there were so many people out there struggling with breastfeeding, struggling with the way they felt after giving birth. It just made me feel I wasn't alone."
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