EXCLUSIVE: Coronation Street and Hollyoaks actress Nikki Sanderson and partner Anthony Quinlan have welcomed their first child together, baby boy, and opened up about their birth experience
With a huge smile on her face, actress Nikki Sanderson tells us she’s’ “completely obsessed” as she gazes lovingly at her six-week-old son. Besotted partner and fellow soap star Anthony Quinlan agrees. “We can’t stop staring at him,” he says proudly.
Nikki and Anthony are on cloud nine as they sit down together for their first exclusive interview since Anthony James Quinlan was born on April 19, weighing a very healthy 7lbs 9oz.
“He’s named after his dad and my brother James,” Nikki, 42, explains. “Two very special men. We’re truly blessed. He’s just so calm, which is great for us while we’re getting used to the baby bubble.”
Indeed, it must be a relief for the pair to have such a chilled-out child, given the way he made his entrance into the world.
“It wasn’t a straightforward birth,” Nikki says. “It’s very rare that you hear of anyone’s birth being easy. Many people have lots have complications and so did we. Fortunately, Anthony came out safely and I was in safe hands too. The hospital [the Royal Bolton Hospital] and midwives were absolutely fantastic.”
For reasons Nikki wants to keep private, she was induced at 39 weeks by way of a hormonal gel, which is used to progress the labour slowly. However, her body became hypersensitive to it, sending her into sudden, non-stop contractions that lasted 24 hours. Her dream of a natural birth was shattered when doctors advised an emergency C-section.
“The problem was that I was consistently contracting, but wasn’t dilating,” Nikki explains. “The doctors tried numerous times to manually pull my cervix down, to try and break my waters. They were trying everything but nothing was working. I was in such horrific pain. I’d been consistently contracting with no dilating for 24 hours. My body was exhausted.”
Eventually, doctors were concerned enough to make the call. Nikki says, “The midwife got the consultant and told them, ‘She can’t continue like this.’ At this point, I was kind of out of it – my body had started shaking and I was in a lot of pain. The consultant said, ‘For the sake of your baby not becoming distressed, we advise you to have an emergency C-section. You physically can’t carry on with this.’”
Anthony was equally concerned. “Nik was so tired at this point, there was a concern that if she did go into full-blown labour she wouldn’t have the strength to push through it.”
With the consultant’s words echoing in her ears and wanting only the best for her baby, Nikki didn’t hesitate. “It was never a question in my mind,” she says, “I just told them, ‘Do whatever you think is best, so long as the baby comes out and he’s safe.’ So that’s what we did.
“I’ve never given birth before and it’s a really scary time. You don’t know what to expect, what’s going to happen or what you’re doing. So to have that supportive unit of people around us made things so much easier. Holding little Anthony for the first time, there’s no feeling like it.”
While Nikki does say she didn’t have a birth plan, her hope was for a natural birth, so she wasn’t expecting the huge recovery that comes with a Caesarean.
“I’ve been in a lot of pain since giving birth, which is to be expected, but as I’d been contracting for so long, all layers of me were contracted,” she explains. “And to cut through those types of contracted muscles can cause extra pain afterwards, which I didn’t realise. But it’s so worth it. Every second of the pain is worth it when you see the little miracle in our arms.”
Thankfully, Anthony is on hand to take care of Nikki, even if she does run away with herself at times. He says, “We were back home after three days in the hospital and immediately I was like, ‘You’re not doing anything.’ But Nik is so strong-willed. I was catching her doing little things like trying to twist, turn, get up. The number of times I tell her to just stop and slow down.”
Nikki in return is full of praise for her partner of four years. “He’s been fantastic,” she says, looking lovingly at him. “His support has been invaluable – he’s been a rock for me the whole way through it. He’s been thrown massively in at the deep end, really. Because I had the C-section in the evening, I couldn’t feel my legs until the next day, so I couldn’t do anything. Anthony had to do everything. He wasn’t just being a dad and looking after his son, he was also having to care for me as well.”
Since getting home, both Nikki and Anthony have eased into their new life with minimal fuss.
Anthony says, “He’s such a good boy, we can’t fault him whatsoever. He has a little moan every now and then when he’s a bit tired or when he wants food, but otherwise he’s calm. We’ve loved every second of it. Even though we’ve made this transition to being parents, it feels like he’s always been here.”
While celeb pals such as Jamie Lomas have already visited little Anthony, this interview is the first time the couple have publicly showed their baby to the world. But their families have all met him.
“He is absolutely surrounded by love,” Nikki smiles. “Everyone is in awe of him.”
When it comes to the name, Nikki and Anthony have chosen to refer to the little one as Anthony, though before he was born his nickname was Mini Quinny.
“Different members of our family and friends have all started calling him different things,” Anthony says. “A couple of people call him AJ, some Tony. I used to get called Toe, so he’s Little Toe as well. I love the fact that he’s got my name.”
For Nikki and Anthony, the road to parenthood was long. Nikki froze her eggs early in their relationship, knowing her biological clock was ticking. The pair tried for two years to conceive.
“We were kind of resigned to the fact that we may need assistance via IVF,” Anthony has said previously.
The couple were delighted to discover they were pregnant just before they started the process. But Nikki suffered horrific trolling when people online said she was “too old” to be pregnant.
Now Nikki is determined not to pay any attention to the comments and is embracing being a mum in her forties.
“I would never dream of saying something so awful to another person,” she says. “It’s such horrible, wasted, negative energy. The bottom line is, it shouldn’t matter how old you are. We planned this baby for so long and we’re in a happy, loving relationship. We’re healthy, we keep fit, so actually we’re in a wonderful position to have a child. Why is it someone else’s prerogative to decide it isn’t the right time for us? We have our beautiful boy and he is happy and loved and surely that’s all that matters?”
Anthony agrees, “My mum was 16 when she had me. And people had something to say about that as well. When the time comes, giving birth and having a child is just the greatest gift. And we’ve been fortunate enough to have that.”
“Since having him, I’ve not really been that active online,” Nikki says. “The only comments I’ve seen have been congratulatory and that’s the way it should be when you have a baby. It’s really sad if people aren’t happy for you, and it definitely says more about them than it does about you.”
Now the ecstatic parents are looking ahead to a very bright future with baby Anthony – even if that does include a lot more “stuff”.
“Even though he’s only been here a few short weeks, it feels like he’s never not been here,” beams Anthony. “And yeah, you do forget what life was like before, especially when you’re trying to leave the house and you’ve got, like, 1,000 things to remember to take with you.”
Nikki laughs. “It’s definitely a bit crazier now,” she says. “But life has been so much more enriched by having him here. He absolutely melts our hearts.”
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