Love Island star Laura Anderson has praised ex-partner Gary Lucy for supporting her during the “traumatic” birth of their daughter Bonnie.The former Love Island star, 34, welcomed her first child with the ex Hollyoaks actor, 41, last month after a harrowing birth experience due to a difficult induction and a post-partum haemorrhage.
Anderson and Lucy enjoyed a whirlwind relationship after meeting while taking part in Celebs Go Dating last year.
Their romance was short-lived however, as they broke up at the beginning of 2023 and then further shocked fans by announcing that they were expecting a baby together.
Several months ago, Lucy, who has four children from a previous relationship, then said he wasn't sure he would be there during the delivery but later changed his mind amid their split.
Anderson has now praised the actor for being very "hands-on" in her time of need.
She told OK! Magazine: “I don’t feel like I could have done it without Gary there. Genuinely. He was really hands-on and it was good to have him in my corner checking that things were going OK. Gary and my mum made a good team!
“I’m glad he was there because I always imagined the father of my baby being at the birth.
"It was 100% the right thing to do for Bonnie, for me and for him. It was important to set aside any emotional differences or any romantic issues between us because the only person that mattered was Bonnie."
Her comments come after she opened up about suffering a vaginal tear and a postpartum haemorrhage, which resulted in a loss of 1.6 litres of blood.
Taking to Instagram following Bonnie's birth, the new mum revealed that she had undergone four sweeps – a procedure believed to initiate labour – followed by “horrendous contractions” after receiving a non-hormonal cervical balloon to induce labour.
Speaking in the candid clip at the time, she explained: “I was in the hospital and I was only one centimetre dilated but I just felt no one was taking me seriously.”
She further described the intensity of her contractions, occurring every minute and a half, and the mental anguish of knowing she had a long way to go without pain relief as she wasn’t admitted to the labour ward until she was four centimetres dilated.
The Scottish native then told how she began bleeding upon reaching the delivery room, and within an hour, she had dilated from four to nine centimetres, relying on gas and air for relief.
She said: “When I was at 9cm I said, ‘f**k this s**t give me the epidural I can’t do this’ and then they were like ‘it’s too late, we are going to give you something else’.”
Ultimately, Anderson said she was left feeling relief and gratitude and as if the “gods were with me” when she was finally administered an epidural.
"As soon as I stopped needing the gas and air I was like ‘Hallelujah’,” she continued. “I even had a nap, they scheduled me a nap and said, ‘at half five we will begin pushing’.”
One small mercy was that little Bonnie was born after just three pushes.
Anderson recalled: “They got her out, she cried straight away, she was really responsive and alert it was amazing. I was talking to her, she really liked that.”
However, the ordeal wasn’t over yet. She suffered a second-degree tear during delivery and required stitches. Five hours later, she experienced a severe haemorrhage, losing significant amounts of blood and clots, which left her feeling extremely faint.
