Gemma Atkinson has been praised as she shared why she actually hasn't got a 'due date' for her son. The Hits Radio host announced back in January that she and her Strictly Come Dancing star fiancé Gorka Marquez were expanding their brood.
The couple, who met on the BBC One dance contest in 2017 before love blossomed on the show's live tour at the start of the following year, welcomed their first child, daughter Mia, in 2019 and revealed that a boy would be joining their adorable family this summer.
Bury-born Gemma and dancer Gorka shared the joyous news on social media after the mum-of-two-to-be said it had become "impossible" to hide her baby bump any longer. And the 38-year-old has since been keeping her fans updated on her pregnancy with her usual humour and honesty.
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Taking to Instagram on Tuesday (April 25), Gemma shared a screengrab of a message she received in which she was asked when her 'little man' was due. "Hope you don't mind me asking," one of her loyal followers added. "Don't mind at all," Gemma prefaced her reply.
The former Emmerdale and Hollyoaks star then continued: "I've been asked this a lot but I've specifically asked for a time frame instead of a due date for a few reasons..." Sharing why, she went on: "1. I think we become too obsessed with that one day. 2. If they arrive before or after that day we start with 'they are late or early panic/anxiety'.
"So with that in mind, I've asked for a 'timeframe'. I've been told any time from the back few weeks in June to the front few weeks in July he could be coming. Happier me that way as I'm more chilled and accepted of he'll come when he's ready."
After sharing her reasoning, Gemma received praise. Showing one of the messages in a follow-up Instagram Story post, it read: "So true. People are obsessed with due dates. I'm 1 1//2 weeks overdue and people will not leave me alone."
"Oh bless you! That's the thing with just a date," Gemma typed in response so her followers could see. "The last thing you want is ppl mothering and adding pressure. We genuinely go into labour when we feel relaxed, safe and calm and being constantly badgered by ppl about being overdue will put your body and mind in the opposite state."
Adding her own advice, Gemma added: "Tell them their comments are over due and your little baby is cooking away happily and will arrive as and when they feel ready," alongside a string of red heart emojis.
Gemma then went on to chat in a video after a recent meeting with her midwife. She shared how she and Gorka had been talking about the upcoming birth, which she hopes to be a water birth, when her partner was asked if he had thought about his 'role' in the process.
"She [the midwife] said, 'You might even want to catch him.' And Gorka went, 'Catch him? What do you mean catch him?' She said, 'Well, you can help pull him out.' And he went, 'No, no. I'll stay near the head. Gemma's head, not the baby.' And when she left, he went to me, 'Do people do that? You catch him?'"
But Gemma laughed as she told how she explained it wasn't like a tennis ball machine which fires out the balls. She recalled saying: "He's not going to shoot out. How wide do you think I am?" But the former soap star said she is 'glad' of Gorka's choice. "I wouldn't want him down there. I don't think he'd go near it again," she honestly confessed.
"It'd be like. Predator. When Predator takes its mask off. But oh well, it is what it is. This is the thing, with Mia, I only had two contractions and it was like, 'We have to get her out, her heart rate is too low'. So I didn't really... I didn't labour. So that's good because I don't know what to expect so it's new.
"But our kid said to me, 'If you imagine your abs being ripped open, and imagine the feeling your back is going to be ripped open, pressure everywhere and just feeling irritable.' She went, 'That's what it's like'. And I went, 'Oh, thanks Nina [her sister].'"
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