She may have been through it four times before, but Stacey Solomon still knows preparing for the arrival of a baby is a stressful experience. She announced last week she was expecting a girl, and despite her excitement at giving one-year-old daughter Rose a sister, Stacey has been feeling the jitters over the arrival of her fifth Pickle. She didn’t realise she was expecting until a few months in, so it’s no wonder she feels this pregnancy has flown by.
Stacey – who was due to give birth as heat went to press – only revealed her baby news in December, saying, “Coming soon… much sooner than we thought when we found out. We still wanted to have that first few months to adjust and get excited, but that didn’t leave us with very long left.”
As well as keeping up with work commitments, Stacey has been keen to spend quality time with her four children before the new arrival, so hasn’t been quite as prepared as she’d have liked. “Stacey can’t quite believe how quickly this pregnancy has whizzed by,” an insider reveals to heat.
“She’s over the moon to be adding to her family and it’s a dream come true to have another girl. The new baby will be so close in age to Rose, she knows they’ll have such a bond – and the boys are excited, too. She hasn’t stopped smiling since she found out, but at the same time, she knows it’s going to be so full-on. Right now, she’s a little overwhelmed.”
The I’m A Celeb winner – who has Zachary, 14, and Leighton, ten, from previous relationships, and Rex, three, and Rose with husband Joe Swash – even joked with fans about the struggle of picking a name for the new baby, admitting in an Insta Q&A, “We’ve got no name. Like, literally, nothing. We’ve had so many kids, we’ve ran out of names.”
Fans of the 33 year old will remember that during her last pregnancy, she was not only redecorating Pickle Cottage, but was also writing her second book. But this time, we’re told Stacey has been trying to relax in the run-up to the birth. Our source explains, “She’s just been wanting to nest and hibernate away at Pickle Cottage. It’s overwhelming, so she is doing her best to stay as calm as possible, and that means taking time to herself when she can. She’s been doing lots of breathing exercises and trying to relax, but of course she can barely get a moment’s peace in the house. She’s such a hands-on mum and there’s the two dogs – there’s never a dull moment.”
Luckily, Stacey has Joe, her husband of six months, on hand to support her. Stacey often praises Joe – who is also dad to Harry, 15, from a previous relationship – on social media, and recently called him, “The best daddy anyone could wish for.”
The source adds, “Joe is really good at trying to keep Stacey chilled out, but sometimes he gets a little overwhelmed, as well. There are already five children in the house when Harry is there, and they both know that, with another baby, the chaos is going to be turned up to ten. There are times when they both look at each other wide-eyed and slightly panicked, but then they tell each other that it’s going to be fine – being parents is all they ever wanted and they know they’re so lucky to have such a big and loving family.”
Although, if the couple are already feeling overwhelmed by the number of mouths they have to feed, Joe should put down the cleaning tools. Stacey recently joked, “If I woke up and Joe was just cleaning the windows, I’m not going to lie, I could probably get pregnant again.”
