Why I’ll NEVER stop trying for a baby despite traumatic miscarriage, says Katie Price – as she insists 46 isn’t too old
HEARTBROKEN Katie Price has spoken about her devastating miscarriage at the age of 46.
The mum-of-five, who had been told she had just a 1% chance of conceiving, unexpectedly fell pregnant with boyfriend JJ Slater over Christmas – but a scan later confirmed she had tragically lost the baby.
She has now vowed to go back to IVF and try for a sixth child – and will not stop trying until she is medically “too old” to do so.
In an emotional interview with The Sun, Katie hopes to help raise awareness and support for mothers going through similar – and has teamed up with the UK’s leading pregnancy and research support charity, Tommy’s.
She says: “It’s been hard. Did I cry or not? I don’t really know, but I was just really sad because we went from joy and relief that I could get pregnant naturally, to confusion, heartbreak and sadness.
“Last year I’d been told I was perimenopausal and that there was only a 1% chance I could get pregnant naturally, so me and JJ didn’t really think I would. We weren’t even trying.
“But then on Boxing Day I missed a period, and I’m usually so regular every 28 days, and the symptoms started: my boobs were sore, I felt bloated, a little bit moody and started feeling nauseous.
“I did loads of pregnancy tests because I wanted to be sure, and JJ kept asking me if it was real. He was so, so excited.
“But the line on the tests wasn’t getting any darker, which I knew from previous experience it should have been, so I started to worry.
“We went to a clinic for blood tests and a scan and the scan showed where the baby was, but that it wasn’t alive any more.
“It’s been devastating.”
Cruelly this is Katie’s fourth miscarriage, in addition to a previous ectopic pregnancy.
Meanwhile her beloved eldest son, Harvey, has a raft of debilitating special needs and, at 28 stone, is about to start Ozempic.
The 22-year-old – son of Dwight Yorke who has refused all contact with his child – is visually impaired, autistic, ADHD, has septic optic, dysplasia and Prader-Willi syndrome which leaves him feeling hungry constantly.
Katie also had incredibly complicated births with her two youngest children, plus four cesareans.
Despite this – or perhaps because she has such experience – she says she would love a sixth child, and would happily raise another baby with disabilities: “I’d love and care for any baby regardless.”
She adds: “Age is just a number.
“I would say I’m very young for my age – just my outlook on everything. I don’t look my age, and that’s not because of surgery; I just don’t act or dress my age. I’m very ‘with the times’ if that makes sense.
“I mean, it’s like when you go to the school, you get mums who are older than me who are actually probably half my age.
“I have to think, ‘well I do have five beautiful kids anyway’, but I have always been deeply maternal and I just love nurturing and caring. I trained as a nurse before I got into all of this career.
“I adore every stage of childhood, and with my two eldest now, I love the stage they’re at. I love being their friend.
“But I do have to remember my body is getting older and it’s not a young body any more.
“I am 47 this year but you know, you hear of these stories of people who have babies in their 70s, or 50s and I think ‘but I’m only in my 40s’, how can this be?
“So it’s like, I want to put a message out to people – don’t give up because there are options out there and I hope that by being in the public eye, I can give hope to people out there struggling to conceive.”
While her Married At First Sight boyfriend JJ is a young millennial at 32, Kate, born in 1978, is not.
“Oh yes, I’m a Geriatric aren’t I?”, she asks sweetly, meaning, I think, Generation X.
(Although, depressingly, in pregnancy terms, any woman over 35 is medically termed a “Geriatric”).
What are symptoms of early miscarriage?
The most clear sign a woman is having a miscarriage is bleeding, varying from light spotting to heavy blood clots.
But bear in mind, some bleeding during the first three months of pregnancy is normal and does not necessarily mean a miscarriage – contact the maternity team or GP as soon as possible.
Other symptoms of a miscarriage include:
- cramping and pain in your lower tummy
- a discharge of fluid from your vagina
- a discharge of tissue from your vagina
- no longer experiencing the symptoms of pregnancy, such as feeling sick and breast tenderness
After being told about her latest miscarriage at the Agora fertility clinic in West Sussex Katie was given a course of tablets to expel the embryos. It was, understandably, an unpleasant experience.
Speaking from her home nearby, she says: “It was awful because I was feeling sick and I was thinking, ‘I just want it out of me’ because it’s not nice to know it’s still hanging around inside you.
“So they gave me these tablets for five days to bring on the period, which I’ve now had but I’m still bleeding now.
“I think the miscarriage is worse now because I’m older, because I really know that I am at the end of the road for having kids.
“Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t nice when I was younger either but when you’re young, you know you can try again.
“Whereas when you’re at the end of the road, the spectrum of my age and having done the IVF, it’s a different experience you feel because you know, you haven’t really got long left.
“But like I said, I do want more kids. [For me], it’s good that, you know, when you feel alone, you’re not alone.”
Katie Price's love life
We take a look back at the highs and lows of Katie Price's relationship history.
1996-1998: Katie got engaged to Gladiators star Warren Furman – aka Ace – with a £3,000 ring. But their relationship didn’t make it as far as ‘I do’.
1998-2000: Katie described Dane Bowers as ‘the love of her life’ but she broke up with the singer when he allegedly cheated on her.
2001: Footballer Dwight Yorke is the father of Katie’s eldest child Harvey. He has had very little to do with Harvey throughout his life.
2002: Rebounding from Dwight, Katie famously had one night of passion with Pop Idol star Gareth Gates, allegedly taking his virginity.
2002-2004: Katie was dating Scott Sullivan when she entered the jungle for I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here!. He threatened to “punch Peter’s lights out” when chemistry blossomed between her and Peter Andre.
2004-2009: The jungle romance resulted in Katie marrying Aussie pop star Peter. They had two kids, Junior and Princess, before their bitter split in 2009.
2010-2011: Fresh from her break-up with Peter, Katie enjoyed a whirlwind relationship and marriage with cage fighter Alex Reid. They split 20 months after their Las Vegas wedding.
2011: Katie briefly dated model Danny Cipriani… but it ended as quickly as it begun.
2011-2012: They didn’t speak the same language, but Katie got engaged to Argentinian model Leandro Penna in 2011. He later fled home to South America.
2012-2018: Wedding bells rang once more after Katie met Kieran Hayler in 2013. They had two kids together, Jett and Bunny, before their break-up and divorce.
2018-2019: Katie moved on quickly with Kris Boyson. They had an on-off romance for one year and even got engaged. They split for good in 2019.
2019: Katie was linked to Charles Drury during her on-off relationship with Kris. Charles, who also dated Lauren Goodger, has always denied being in “official relationship” with her.
2020-2023: Car salesman Carl Woods took a shining to Katie in 2020. Their relationship was up and down for three years. They broke up for a final time last year.
2024-present: After weeks of rumours, Katie confirmed her relationship with Married At First Sight star JJ Slater in February this year.
After realising she would be unable to carry the baby to term, Katie went online to try and speak to other mothers facing similar heartache.
Here, she found Tommy’s, and spoke to midwives for advice.
She credits the charity for helping her through her ‘loneliness and confusion’ and has now teamed up with them for the launch of their Projecting Life campaign, highlighting the lifelong impact of pregnancy loss and the need for more research to save babies’ lives.
“No one should feel alone in situations like this,” she explains.
At this stage, Katie whips out what looks like a three-month-old baby by the neck, and shoves her face in the Zoom camera lens.
I am momentarily stunned into silence, until Kate explains the little girl, remarkably life-life, is, in fact, a £130 Reborn Doll.
She has four of them – representing each lost baby – and says they have given her immense comfort whilst she grieves.
“I’m not crazy or nothing [sic],” she smiles. “But there’s something kind of comforting in them. I’m not crazy at all.
“I read up on them, it’s supposed to help with well-being and for parents who have had still-borns.
“I saw them and thought, ‘oh, don’t be ridiculous Kate, you know, getting a doll at your age’, but I don’t look at them as a doll. They are so real, like newborns, like they’re more like a comforting thing. It’s really weird, and I can’t explain it.
“At the end of the day, I haven’t got a baby, and these give me comfort.”
Over the course of a 30 year career, Katie has certainly been through the ringer.
Having made £100mn, and enjoyed a fairytale romance with Australian singer Peter Andre – whom she met down under on I’m A Celeb, and who is the father of her two eldest, Junior and Princess – she then proceeded to lose it all.
She has two children with ex Kieran Hayler, and underwent unsuccessful IVF with her most recent ex, Carl Woods.
While she still has a legion of incredibly loyal fans, this being the Age of Social Media, she also receives horrific trolling on a daily basis.
Indeed, for the past two months a vociferous army of detractors have been incredibly cruel about her weight, suggesting she has an eating disorder because of her slim frame.
The reality, she says, was that she was healthy enough to conceive naturally – and she “ate really healthily” in order to have a healthy pregnancy.
She says: “I’m not the perfect role model, and I’m not trying to be, but when you’ve gone through real life experiences, like with Harvey, the miscarriages, etc people do listen but yeah, it is hard.
“And then I had all these stories come out saying, ‘oh, she’s lost so much weight’.
“I wanted to put it out there, but I didn’t say, how can you say that? ‘I’m pregnant at the minute! I’m stressed with it all!’ You can’t say it, I wasn’t [12 weeks gone].
“I got skinny because I’ve been healthy and that. So in my head, because I thought I was pregnant and didn’t know I was going to have a miscarriage, I just thought, ‘you’ll see soon when, when you see a baby bump.’
“I wouldn’t have even been able to get pregnant if I was too skinny.
“And if they troll me for this interview, it raises awareness for Tommy’s, so then it’s served its purpose.”
Kate has been advised to wait three months before trying again to get pregnant.
She says this experience has brought her and JJ closer than ever, and they are both hopeful to have a child in the future.
She smiles, ruefully: “I want more kids but I realise my journey won’t be that easy.
“It won’t be conventional. But I’m not giving up. I’m staying positive. And that’s all you can do.”
Kate donated her fee for this interview to Tommy’s – for more information visit
https://www.tommys.org/change-lifetime-of-loss