IN LOVING MEMORY - 'You never get over it, you never forget'

Actress Kirsty-Leigh Porter, whose first baby was stillborn at 29 weeks, opens up on her heartbreaking loss, her joy at the safe arrival of daughter Nala Rai, and sharing her story on screen in Hollyoaks

- JEN PHARO

When Kirsty-Leigh Porter held baby Nala Rai in her arms for the first time, she was overwhelmed with relief, joy and inescapable sadness.

Nala, now three, was a rainbow baby, born two years after Kirsty-Leigh lost her first daughter Penny-Leigh, who died when she was 29 weeks and three days pregnant. The Hollyoaks star travelled to hospital alone for a check-up after feeling reduced movements in December 2018. Doctors scanned her bump but were unable to find a heartbeat and Kirsty-Leigh was told her much-loved and longedfor baby had died.

The blur of hours, days, weeks and months that followed were the darkest of Kirsty-Leigh's life. In hospital she gave birth to Penny-Leigh, held her, talked to her and loved her. She took prints of her tiny feet and hands. Then she and Penny-Leigh's father, Paul Barber, began to organise their baby's funeral. Kirsty-Leigh had never felt pain like it.

"I'm not the Kirsty I was before Penny-Leigh," she tells OK!. "My soul left for a little bit after Penny-Leigh. Everything flips upside down." Loneliness overwhelmed Kirsty-Leigh in the aftermath of her daughter's death. In the end it was the support of strangers that helped her through, and the desire to make her daughter proud.

"You never get over it, you never forget. There's always going to be a part of you that's missing," says Kirsty-Leigh. "I remember one day when I got up and I thought, 'I can't carry on like this any more, I have to do something. I do a lot of writing. Once I've written what's running through my head, I feel like I've offloaded a lot." Kirsty-Leigh felt strongly that Penny-Leigh was watching over her, which gave her some comfort.

"My turning point was thinking, 'I've now got the best guardian angel in the world that I could ever ask for and I'm going to wake up every morning and do her proud,"" she explains. "That kept me going.