EastEnders star Lacey Turner has spoken of her surprise at the premature birth of her son Trilby, saying that when her waters broke, she "pretended it wasn't happening".
The Press Association reports that Turner, who plays Stacey Slater in the BBC soap, was a guest on ITV's Loose Women, where she recounted the arrival of son Trilby, her second child with husband Matt Kay.
She told the panel that when her waters broke, she initially went back to bed, because she was "so tired".
"I thought that only happened in films and I thought, 'Surely not'," she said.
"And I thought, 'Oh no, I can't, I'm so tired'.
"So, I got into bed and pretended it wasn't happening and then I thought, 'I can't do this'.
"I phoned them up and they said, 'You better come in', and so I threw some Mini Eggs in the case and a nightie and I went in thinking I was coming home."
She said she had yet to pack a bag for the hospital.
Turner said she "wasn't scared" about the premature birth because she had been born prematurely herself.
"I think the scary bit for me was after, when he was born, and he was so tiny and he had loads of tubes and everything, that sort of frightened me more than anything," she continued.
Turner said Kay was able to stay with her in hospital.
"He was there throughout the whole birth which, I think, thank goodness, because it would have been really, really hard to do that on your own. I know so many women had to do that at the beginning of this pandemic, so I was really grateful that he could be there."
On her choice of name for her son, Turner said: "I actually worked with a girl years ago and she had a sister called Trilby Fox."
Turner said she "loved the name" and decided that if she had a son, she would call him Trilby.
"I have to say to people, 'Trilby, as in the hat'," she added.
Turner and Kay are also parents to daughter Dusty, who was born in 2019. Turner had previously suffered two miscarriages.
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EastEnders airs on RTÉ One and BBC One on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.
