Nadia Sawalha feared her three miscarriages were a "punishment" for having had an abortion.
Nadia Sawalha
The 53-year-old TV star and her husband Mark Adderley have lost three children, and Nadia has admitted that after her first miscarriage, she feared it was the result of having had an abortion earlier in her life.
She said: "Of course, I had had a termination years before. And I think, you know, all that guilt came up. And I was thinking: 'Is this a punishment?'
"And with each subsequent miscarriage, I felt like that. I felt it was a punishment."
The former 'EastEnders' actress didn't reveal when she suffered her miscarriage, but she confirmed it wasn't during her marriage to Mark.
Nadia - who has daughters Maddy, 15, and Kiki, 10, with Mark - also explained that her early heartbreak taught her a valuable life lesson.
The TV star - who dated her former 'EastEnders' co-star Marc Bannerman before meeting Mark - told the 'How To Stay Married' podcast: "From the second you know you're pregnant, you start making plans. It makes me cry.
"It doesn't really matter if you've known for a day or eight weeks, it doesn't really make any difference. You can see their face, you can see their smile. You start worrying about where they'll go to school and what holidays will be like. That all happens from day one.
"I immediately felt like panic-stricken? What if I'm barren now and I can't have a baby?
"And that's why I am such an advocate of telling everyone from the second you're pregnant. If we'd kept it a secret for three months and then told everyone we wouldn't have got that support in that grief."
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