Geordie Shore star Holly Hagan followed strict sex schedule to get pregnant

It’s been a matter of days since Holly Hagan-Blyth announced she’s expecting her first child with her footballer husband Jacob Blyth – and her due date is significant for the couple.

“We’re due on the exact date of our wedding anniversary [6 June],” Holly says. Jacob, who plays for Bradford (Park Avenue) AFC, adds, “It’s the same week we first met, which will be six years ago, and the exact date I proposed three years later.”

The couple, who met in Ibiza in 2017 and live just outside Manchester, reveal they started trying for a baby on their honeymoon. But without any joy three months in, Holly, 30, changed tack and followed a schedule for their sex life.

READ MORE: Hollyoaks’ Jessamy Stoddart gives birth to ‘rainbow baby’ after miscarriage heartbreak

“Since the wedding, I’ve been tracking my ovulation and taking supplements because I can suffer from irregular periods sometimes, usually if I’m stressed,” says Holly.

“The month I fell pregnant was the month we really tried. We used a method called the Sperm Meets Egg Plan. They call it the Baby Dance Schedule. From the eighth day of your cycle you’re supposed to have sex every other day.

“Then once you have a positive ovulation test you have sex every day for three days, then you skip a day and have sex again. It’s not the most romantic but it worked. We didn’t leave much room for error. It wasn’t some fairy tale.”

“When you’re five years in it’s not like the honeymoon stage any more,” says Jacob, laughing. “I wrote it down in my daily schedule. I was like, ‘Football training. Baby making’.”

Holly found out she was pregnant in September while Liverpool fan Jacob, who is also 30, was away for a friend’s birthday – and she waited for him to come home before she broke the news by giving him a baby-sized Liverpool kit with ‘Baby B 23’ on the back.

“When I opened it and saw this little Liverpool kit I thought, ‘How the hell am I going to fit into that?’,” Jacob says. “Then I looked and there was the pregnancy test. My heart stopped – I was in so much shock.”

Former Geordie Shore star Holly, who is 19 weeks pregnant, is feeling relieved her pregnancy has gone smoother than expected, despite some days of nausea and fatigue.

She’s aware things could be different, as she knows her reality star pal Charlotte Crosby had a hard time while carrying her daughter, Alba Jean.

“Charlotte’s pregnancy was really difficult, which is probably the thing that scared me the most,” admits Holly.

“She was constantly throwing up and had a really bad time, but since she’s become a mum it’s been absolutely amazing.

“I haven’t thrown up once, but I was really anxious the first couple of weeks. In those early stages, you don’t know if you’re going to have a miscarriage. You hear all these stories, especially with TikTok, it feels like everybody is having a miscarriage because everyone is talking about it.

“It makes you realise how common it is – and turning 30 as well. Society makes you think once you’ve turned 30 your eggs are just going to dry up and there’s no hope.

“As I was paranoid we had early scans, which helped put my mind at ease. At the eight-week scan, we saw the baby jumping about and doing backflips. That’s when it became real. At the 12-week scan it looked like a physical baby with long legs. It was doing squats against the womb.”

At their next scan the pair will find out the baby’s gender, with them confessing they’d both love a boy.

“You’re not supposed to have a preference but I want two boys,” Holly says. “It’s not very common for a girl to want that, but I don’t have any boys in my family – I just think two boys would be so cute and obviously Jacob wants them to play for England. We’re finding names hard.

“You’re not just naming a baby that’s cute for a couple of years, you’re naming this thing that’s got to be taken seriously in adulthood and potentially be a businessman. We’d like something versatile.”

Holly, who has spoken out about her battle with bulimia in the past after being viciously trolled online, as well as her anger towards the promotion of diet culture, admits she has struggled with the weight gain in her pregnancy.

She was harshly dubbed the “fat one” in the early years of Geordie Shore and what started as a one-off turned into her vomiting up to seven times a day in a bid to be thin. While she has since overcome her eating disorder, she says her body issues haven’t disappeared.

“All I’ve wanted to do is eat,” she says. “I’ve gained a ton of weight, which is not baby weight – it’s being horrendously greedy. I’ve completely gone off Club biscuits and Kinder bars. Now all I want are Babybels and Cheestrings.

“I’m not going to lie, I’m not fond of looking in the mirror at the moment because I’m at that stage where it’s not really a bump, it’s just bloat. I usually feel good about my stomach, so giving that up to create a life is hard.

“But, after all the years of online bullying, I just think, I’m not going to beat myself up. At the moment, I understand the sacrifice, which is the same for a lot of women, is that we do give up our bodies to house and create life. It’s a beautiful thing, but it’s not going to come without its challenges.”

With more than four million followers on Instagram, is Holly worried about online abuse as she experiences motherhood for the first time?

“I think that everybody is really kind when people are pregnant,” says Holly. “Even seeing Charlotte post her pictures after she’s given birth, and she said she’s still got a bump, and the amount of praise she got for just being honest and open.

“I know that I’m not alone in that. When it comes to that point where I’m like, ‘I’ve just given birth to a baby, I don’t feel at home in my body,’ I know that the majority of the women who have given birth will have felt like that at some point.

“But I do worry about the trolling of the baby – people can just be mean, can’t they?”

As the couple now prepare for a huge 2023, Holly shares a final insight into what type of parents she thinks they’ll be.

“My temper is quite bad and I’ve got a short fuse – my mam is exactly the same,”she says. “I’m going to have to check myself when it comes to this child. I can’t be frustrated and need to control those initial impulses!”

Jacob sweetly concludes, “I’ll be there to pick up the pieces – don’t worry.”

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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk