Frank and I won’t seek IVF to have a baby, says 38-year-old Christine... I’ve seen friends torn apart by the trauma
CHILDLESS Christine Lampard is ruling out IVF treatment to have her first baby with husband Frank as she fears the process would be so traumatic it could devastate their marriage.
In an in-depth interview about her family life the presenter attacked people “obsessed” by her body clock.
She also revealed in her chat with the Mail on Sunday’s You magazine she is so in love with husband Frank’s two stepdaughters she wept when she heard children had been killed at the Manchester Arena suicide bomb outrage, and said she is haunted by the thought that she and her family could have been at the venue on that night.
Christine also told for the first time of the effect the Troubles had on her as a child, and how she suffered panic attacks that her musician father would be murdered by the IRA during one of his pub gigs.
Last year the presenter hinted on ITV’s Loose Women she would not rule out IVF as a way to have children.
But speaking about how the process is now off the table for her and her ex-footballer husband, the 38-year-old said: “That isn’t something we have thought about.
“I know friends who have torn themselves apart and jeopardised their relationship because going through IVF was so traumatic and I don’t know if I could do that to myself or Frank.
“I’m not one of those women who was thinking about babies at the age of 18, and when I first met Frank it wasn’t on the agenda.
I am always being asked when I am going to have a baby, everyone seems to be fascinated
If it happens, it happens, but right now all is well in my world as it is.”
Medical studies show it may take longer for women aged over 35 to conceive and there is an estimated 25% risk of miscarriage for pregnant women aged 35 to 39, rising to 51% in women aged 40 to 44.
Despite nearing her 40th birthday, Christine said she is sick of people who constantly ask her the baby question.
“I think women are never allowed to feel that everything in their world is OK — if they are not worried about something, they should be,” she added.
“I am always being asked when I am going to have a baby. Everyone seems to be fascinated by my body clock.
“As far as I am concerned, my attitude is that I will wait and see what happens.”
Christine says she has found a contented balance between her TV career and role as wife to Frank and stepmother to his two young daughters.
The children are described not as daughters by Christine, but as her “gorgeous little girls”.
They spend half the week with their mother, Frank’s Spanish former fiancee Elen Rivas, and half the week with their father and Christine, who have been together since 2009, and married two years ago.
Christine said her love for her stepdaughters caused her to weep when she heard suicide bomber Salman Ramadan Abedi killed 22 people and injured 220 others at the Manchester Arena in May, just after a sold-out concert by American singer Ariana Grande that was packed with kids.
She said news of the attack shook her when she realised she and her family could have been at the venue on the night of the attack on May 22, as Frank’s two girls are huge fans of Grande.
“Manchester hit me hard because on another clock we could have been at the concert,” Christine added. “Frank played for Manchester City and the girls love Ariana Grande, so we 100% could have been there. It just got me. All those kids. This absolute insanity.”
Christine said the attack dredged up memories of her terror over Northern Ireland’s Troubles when growing up in Newtownards.
“My life was shaped by it,” she added.
“There were soldiers on the streets. One of my earliest memories is being scooped out of the bath by my mum because soldiers were banging on the door saying there was a bomb.
“When I was 14 I was playing outside with friends when a car bomb went off (the July 1993 attack on Roma’s Bar) about a mile away and I was covered in dust and bits of rubble.
“It ripped the heart out of the
entire community — it was devastating.
“My dad was a drummer in a band. He was managed by the X Factor judge Louis Walsh, who I knew growing up.
“But his work was mainly playing in pubs, and back then the pubs were a big target for the IRA.
“I had panic attacks as a child and couldn’t sleep until Dad came home.
“I’d wait at the window and pray for the phone not to ring with someone saying there had been an incident.” Christine also talked of the “nonsense” that followed her and Adrian Chiles’ controversial decision to leave BBC’s The One Show for ITV’s disastrous Daybreak show, which — in her own words — turned out to be “awkward”, “messy” and “a nightmare”.
Viewers turned off, and 14 months after the show’s debut Christine and Chiles were replaced.