Victoria Ekanoye has revealed she’s expecting her first child with boyfriend Jonny Lomas.
The former Coronation Street star, 37, who is six months pregnant, announced the happy news in Hello! magazine and is due to give birth in January.
Victoria, who played Angie Appleton in the ITV soap, told how she and Jonny decided to delay revealing their baby news, partly due to her suffering with sickle cell anaemia.
Congratulations! Victoria Ekanoye has revealed she’s expecting her first child with boyfriend Jonny Lomas
The couple, who celebrated their four-year anniversary last month, admitted that the pregnancy came as a ‘surprise’ as they had planned to start trying for a baby in 2021.
Victoria told the publication: ‘We thought we would try next year. So when this pregnancy came along we were like: “It’s happening.” It did come as a bit of a surprise but it’s so unbelievably exciting.’
Despite being thrilled at the prospect of becoming parents, Victoria said there were a few reasons they decided to wait to tell their nearest and dearest the big news.
Parents-to-be: The former Coronation Street star, 37, who is six months pregnant, announced the happy news in Hello! magazine and is due to give birth in January
She explained: ‘We know friends that have miscarried and so we waited until we were 12 weeks before we even told our parents. Then, with my health condition, we wanted a little bit more security and stability in knowing that everything is okay with baby and with me.’
Victoria was first diagnosed with sickle cell anemia when she was just 22.
She added: ‘Chronic illness in general is not easy to live with but to have that during Covid-19 and to be pregnant was a lot.’
The actress, who appeared on he X Factor: Celebrity last year, added that due to her illness, she’s regarded as a ‘high-risk’ pregnancy, and went on to praise the ‘amazing’ health professionals at St Mary’s Hospital in Manchester who’ve looked after her.
Keeping mum: Victoria, who played Angie Appleton in the ITV soap, told how she and Jonny decided to delay revealing their baby news, partly due to her suffering with sickle cell anaemia (pictured in 2019)
Surprise: The couple, who celebrated their four-year anniversary last month, admitted that the pregnancy came as a ‘surprise’ as they had planned to start trying for a baby in 2021
Victoria and Jonny have opted to have a hospital birth, with the TV star expected to be induced around 39 weeks.
The beauty expressed the importance of her giving birth in the ‘controlled environment’ of a hospital as she’ll have to have a blood transfusion straight after the birth.
Meanwhile, dad-to-be Jonny noted that he’s ‘super excited’ about the baby, but is also ‘nervous’ about the ‘new chapter’ in their lives.
Last month, Victoria discussed her battle with debilitating condition sickle cell anaemia.
Unexpected joy: We thought we would try next year. So when this pregnancy came along we were like: “It’s happening” (pictured in 2019)
Read the full interview in Hello! magazine, out now
The Bury-born beauty, who was diagnosed in her early twenties having previously shown few symptoms, spent years masking the painful episodes from her mum.
Speaking to BBC Sounds The Sista Collective, Victoria spoke of hiding due to her love of sport, saying: ‘If I’m honest, there were probably times where the pain was quite a lot but I just didn’t tell my mum’.
Sickle cell disease is the umbrella term for a group of inherited conditions that severely affect red blood cells. Around 15,000 people in the UK are sufferers and it is particularly common in people of African or Caribbean descent.
Healthy red blood cells – produced by stem cells within bone marrow – are biconcaved discs that can bend and flex easily. However, in those with sickle cell disease, faulty stem cells produce red blood cells that are crescent shaped.
Plan: The beauty expressed the importance of her giving birth in the ‘controlled environment’ of a hospital as she’ll have to have a blood transfusion straight after the birth (pictured as Angie Appleton on Coronation Street)
Thrilled: Meanwhile, dad-to-be Jonny noted that he’s ‘super excited’ about the baby, but is also ‘nervous’ about the ‘new chapter’ in their lives
They are rigid, unable to squeeze through smaller blood vessels and prone to causing blockages that deprive parts of the body of oxygen.
Sufferers are not expected to live beyond 60 and treatment mainly focuses on alleviating symptoms, such as pain and infections, through blood transfusion.
On first discovering she had the condition, she said: ‘We thought I was a carrier, especially with me not displaying any symptoms or needing hospitalisation or any kind of blood transfusions.
Sad times: Last month, Victoria discussed her battle with debilitating condition sickle cell anaemia (pictured in March)
‘I just managed the pain and almost.. not became used to it but just kind of battled through it because I loved sport so much and didn’t want to give that up.
‘If I’m honest, there were probably times where the pain was quite a lot but I just didn’t tell my mum because I didn’t want her to pull me from the teams.
‘I was training as a sprinter, the 100 metres, and I just didn’t want to not do it. There probably were times I was a bit naughty but I was only young. I just didn’t really let on how bad the pain was.’
Details: After the actress, who was diagnosed in her early twenties having previously shown few symptoms, spent years masking the painful episodes from her mum (pictured in February)
She then detailed how she suffered a crisis: ‘While working in Majorca as a singer in 2004, as she detailed: ‘It was a hot climate. I wasn’t aware. I was young, in my early 20s, just kind of not really thinking about all of the water intake you need to have.
‘I was singing and it was crazy. I actually had a really, really bad – my first, as I knew anyway – crisis whilst I was out there. I had to have morphine injections and all kinds of stuff. I didn’t know and they didn’t know what was going on.’
After returning to the UK to face up to her condition, she admitted she felt relief that she had got that far in life without knowing what she was dealing with.