EastEnders star Lacey Turner opens up on the two heartbreaking miscarriages she had before becoming mum

EastEnders star Lacey Turner always wanted children when she was growing up, having said, ‘For me, having a family was always the biggest thing I wanted to do. I mean, I was willing to walk down the aisle [at] six months pregnant, I wasn’t fussed. I wanted it so badly.’

But, although she now has her daughter Dusty and is pregnant again, the journey to motherhood wasn’t easy for the actress - who plays Stacey Slater in the BBC soap.

The 32-year-old actor suffered two miscarriages before welcoming Dusty with her husband Matt Kay in July last year, and she’s now ready to open up on the toll it took on her.

Lacey Turner on feeling lonely after her miscarriages

Lacey was 29 and seven weeks pregnant when she suffered her first miscarriage in 2017.

Detailing the moment she realised she’d lost her baby in Channel 5 documentary Miscarriage: Our Story, she said, ‘I just started bleeding really heavily and had really bad stomach cramps so, obviously, in my gut, I knew it wasn’t right.

‘I just felt so empty, I was completely empty. I’d gone from being so excited – and we’d waited so long for this baby – to feeling numb.’

For Lacey, the hardest part of losing her baby was that she couldn’t tell anyone she’d miscarried, as no one knew she was pregnant in the first place. This was because she had not reached the 12-week point where a pregnancy is deemed to be past the greatest risk.

But, with her strong work ethic, the next day Lacey returned to the EastEnders set, where she’d first started in 2004 as feisty Stacey Slater.

She added, ‘I went back to work the next day. That was it – carried on like nothing had happened, which actually makes me really sad now, looking back. I probably was walking around feeling so heartbroken, yet nobody would’ve had a clue. You don’t understand it, you feel completely alone. There isn’t anyone who can help you,’ she said.

‘And I think actually what we [my husband Matt and I] should have done was talk to each other. But, because we didn’t, it actually made both of us really lonely – you feel like you’re the only person in the world that this has happened to.’

Lacey Turner nearly gave up trying for a baby

Soon after Lacey and Matt lost their first baby, they fell pregnant again, but they agreed together to ‘not get too excited’.

Unfortunately, their caution was justified and they lost the baby at seven weeks again, which Lacey admitted was ‘so much worse than the last time’.

After that second miscarriage, a disheartened Lacey and Matt almost gave up trying for a baby altogether, saying, ‘We’ll just get another dog and what will be will be.’

But Lacey said that they fell pregnant for a third time ‘the minute’ they almost agreed to give up on their dream of becoming parents – and, when she and Matt found out the news, both decided again not to get their hopes up.

She added, ‘What should have been a lovely moment, I made really negative. I thought, “I’m just going to ignore this, I don’t feel pregnant, so I’ll just pretend I’m not pregnant.”

‘Right up until the end I thought, until I have the baby in my hands and she is breathing and alive and kicking, I can’t relax.’

Lacey Turner on becoming a mum

Lacey and Matt finally became parents in July last year, when she gave birth to Dusty.

Talking about her long-awaited child, she gushed, ‘I just feel so lucky to have her. She’s changed our lives in so many ways. She’s incredible, she really is.’

And now she’s expecting a sibling for Dusty in February, Lacey has described it as a ‘miracle’ – although she can’t help but continue to worry.

‘I don’t think pregnancy will ever be an exciting experience for me, as I always have that worry in the back of my mind,’ she recently admitted. ‘But the further along I go in the pregnancy, the less I worry.’

We wish you all the best, Lacey!

✱ For information and support following a miscarriage, visit tommys.org