'There had to be emergency surgery' - Stacey Dooley opens up on heartbreak of ectopic pregnancy

Presenter Stacey Dooley has revealed she sadly suffered an ectopic pregnancy trying to conceive her second child, sharing the news during an episode of her show, Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over.

The presenter and documentary maker met her partner, Kevin Clifton, when they were paired together on Strictly in 2018 - they share daughter Minnie, born in 2023.

As a part of her latest series, the 38-year-old spends 72 hours at the house of an unusual family. While staying with gay father and supporter of commercial surrogacy, Barrie Drewitt-Barlow, Stacey spoke to the cameras about her ectopic pregnancy experience.

With commercial surrogacy banned in the UK, Stacey said she had been "forced to think of alternatives" to expanding her family in the aftermath of losing her baby.

"I have experienced what it is like to struggle to have a child," she said, adding, "We obviously wanted to expand our family and last year I fell pregnant and it didn't go brilliantly. It was ectopic... It was ectopic and it was really f***ing difficult.

According to The Ectopic Pregnancy Trust, ectopic pregnancy affects around 1 in 80 pregnancies, with nearly 12,000 women in the UK diagnosed with one each year.

The literal meaning is “an out-of-place pregnancy” and it occurs when a fertilised egg implants outside the womb, with the most common place for it to "stick" being the Fallopian tube.

There are other places in the egg that can implant outside of the uterus, and an ectopic pregnancy will not be viable wherever the egg finds itself that isn't the womb.

A pregnancy growing inside the Fallopian tube can cause it to burst or severely damage it. This can cause internal bleeding and pain, and is considered a medical emergency.

Detailing her own rupture, Stacey shared, "There was an internal rupture and there had to be emergency surgery. Of course, when you go through something like that, you are forced to think of alternatives."

"S*** happens, and if you want a bigger family, you have to think how you're going to do that."

Prior to her ectopic pregnancy experience, Stacey had previously told The Guardian of her desire to have more children, although she conceded it "wasn't a given".

"If I’d started sooner, I could have had more,” she said, adding, "I might have had two, or three or four. But you have to be realistic about these things. Like, biologically."

"I did everything I needed to in my 20s. I had an amazing decade of prioritising myself. All of that freedom. But, actually, I think I should have… I didn’t know I’d feel like this."