Why Christine wanted extra time before she told Frank of pregnancy

CHRISTINE Lampard has told of how she has waited until she was quite far along in her pregnancy before sharing the news, because she was ‘anxious’.

The Newry presenter, 39, announced on Wednesday that she is pregnant with her first child with husband Frank Lampard.

She told ITV’s Loose Women she ‘found out quite a while ago’ that she is expecting.

She said: “I’m actually 21 weeks... In that classic kind of anxious, nervous, sort of superstitious way, we want to get the big scan done first and then you can open up and start to tell people, because I’ve been really nervous. ‘You’re always thinking the worst.’ When asked if she had been taking numerous pregnancy tests while trying, Christine, who hosts the daytime programme, said: ‘No, I wasn’t at all. I just think sometimes that can consume you too much, it was very much a case of, let’s just see what happens.

Christine, pictured with Frank, previously revealed she did not want to do IVF, preferring to see if she could fall pregnant naturally.

‘I’m clearly not 18 any more, so we didn’t know if it was going to happen.

‘But it’s been the loveliest time between the two of us. I wanted to let nature be the referee.’

She added, of the earlier days of her pregnancy: ‘I did feel different, for no reason, I can’t put my finger on anything but I thought, could I be?

‘And then you get scared to even get excited, and of course then the test was done and there it was.’

Frank, 39, has two children from a previous relationship, daughters Luna, 12, and Isla, 10, but it is the first for Christine.

Christine said that her stepdaughters are looking forward to having a new baby brother or sister, and that ‘to say they are excited doesn’t do it justice at all’.

‘I’ve told them that the baby can apparently hear voices at this point so they’re talking to my tummy asking them who the baby’s favourite sister is.

‘They want a girl, that’s their only situation.’

She also revealed that she had not told Frank she was going to take a pregnancy test on the day she found out, and that he was away working in Manchester when she did.

Christine and Frank, who married in 2015, shared the news in an Instagram post in which she admitted she felt ‘so excited, nervous and grateful’ and that ‘the list of emotions is endless’.

Revealing her relief over sharing the news, Christine said: ‘It’s nice to be able to breathe out. I was sucking it in.’