Jools Oliver has spoken candidly about having a miscarriage in lockdown.
The 45-year-old, who shares five children with chef husband Jamie Oliver, said she has had three miscarriage since the birth of her youngest child, with one taking place several weeks ago.
Speaking to Zoe Hardman on the Made By Mammas podcast, she said: “I really do, I really do [want another child] but I’ve just had three miscarriages since then and a recent one three weeks ago and I’m thinking ‘No’.
“I don’t know. I do want to, but I’ve got to mentally check that it’s a good idea to do it.
“And also physically because I am 45 as I always say, nearly 46. So it’s a little bit dodgy.”
She continued: “Jamie is still up for it, kind of, not really. I haven’t got long, maybe another year and then I really will just shut that chapter off because I am very happy and I am pretty full up at the moment as it is.
“But just that little baby, it’s a terrible thing to keep wanting something but you can’t help it. I assume it will stop.”
Jools, who is mum to Poppy, 18, Daisy, 17, Petal, 11, Buddy, nine, and River, three, added that she had spoken to doctors about the impact the miscarriage has had on her mental health.
“He said ‘How are you mentally?’ and I thought about it and I went ‘Well, this is the fifth one now,’” she explained.
“I had two before River, and three, they’ve been early ones, they have been six-and-a-half weeks, the last two were.
“I’m really good at going ‘Right, I’m pregnant but it won’t work so I’m just going to carry on’, whereas everyone gets really into it and I have really learnt to not because I’m kind of not very positive about it so I feel OK, I also feel I’m so lucky.”
“I just feel like I have got five and shut up, on to the school run.”
While Jools believes that it’s important to speak openly about miscarriage, she added she was reluctant to tell her family as she didn’t want them to fear for her over the difficult lockdown period.
“I did have a pretty dangerous [miscarriage] – I think it was my second one which was really dangerous for myself – so my family don’t want me to do it again,” she said.
“They think ‘You don’t need to do it again, you’ve got five, you’ve got healthy children, just be grateful’. They don’t say it like that but that’s what I mean and I understand because my life is more important so I sometimes may not tell the sisters because I don’t want to hurt their feelings, I’d rather just not say because they’ll be worried about me, especially during lockdown.
“Telling my mum, well, especially because I couldn’t see her, would have really upset her so I kept that quiet. She knows now, but at the time I didn’t tell her.”
Jools recently revealed she is still keen to expand their brood, admitting she had asked Jamie if they could have “one more.”
“Jamie says, ‘You can’t put an age on it because you keep on talking about it’ but just one more for River,” she said on The Red Room podcast. “I want to just stop bugging Jamie. But I feel like I don’t know. I think one more.”
Additional reporting by PA
