Jessica Fox gives birth! Hollyoaks star welcomes her first child with husband Nicholas

Jessica Fox has welcomed her first child with husband Nicholas Willes.

The 39-year-old Holloaks star, who plays Nancy Hayton on the Channel 4 soap opera, took to Instagram on Tuesday to share her jovial baby news with her followers.

The new mother announced that she and her husband Nicholas had named their baby boy River, saying: “Baby River, you have changed our world forever and we are so grateful to love you.”

Jessica shared a series of birth photos, including one of her first cuddle with her baby as her husband looked on.

Another snap showed Nicholas proudly carrying his baby boy outside the hospital, while he also shared a close-up image of River’s hospital ID bracelet, which revealed he was born on March 7.

Jessica, who secretly married Nicholas in 2020, revealed that she was pregnant in October 2022 and shared a photo of her baby’s scan on Instagram.

In the post, shared on baby loss awareness week, Jessica also spoke candidly about her fertility journey, explaining that she had previously suffered two miscarriages.

Confirming her pregnancy, she wrote: “This week has been baby loss awareness week. So it seemed like a good (and bad) time to share our story at the end of such an important and heartbreaking campaign and to show our support for all those who have been or are going through a similar journey.

‘Trigger warning: trying to conceive and conceiving after loss. Please use the mute or unfollow button if any of this is too much for you.

‘From difficulties, miracles grow. ❤️ For spring 2023.’

In a longer caption, shared as a series of screenshots alongside her post, she went on to discuss her fertility journey.

She wrote: ‘Nick and I have been on a rocky road to get to this point. Miscarriage is horrible, there’s no other word for it.

It steals the future you had planned, your faith in your body, it isolates you, it terrifies you and no one seems to talk about it.

“It’s incredibly painful, it’s painful to pass out in the bathroom. It takes away your joy and excitement when and if you choose to (and can) get pregnant again.

“It is replaced by anxiety, stress, and more fear than I could have ever imagined. Nick and I lost two babies in 2021. Both losses were late in the first trimester and completely heartbreaking.

She then explained how difficult it was when her Hollyoaks character got pregnant: “In a cruel twist of fate, when I got pregnant for the second time, the character I play in Hollyoaks was also pregnant.”

“On Twitter and Instagram I was seeing comments that I must be pregnant in real life. She seemed pregnant almost immediately and had started to put on weight.

‘I started showing at work, I was so smug that I would have the most realistic baby belly of my life. Maybe my real baby could play my son on screen? The wardrobe department, who are the nicest people in the world, were the only ones who knew that she was pregnant.

So I lost the baby. On Friday I had a real lump, on Monday I was getting a fake one. It was as horrible as it sounds. I tried to keep it a secret and move on. Sharing this on social media is not something I expected to do.

She went on to say: ‘On my due date at work I was handed a beautiful little baby and I cried uncontrollably throughout the whole scene.

“The director, not knowing my situation, must have thought it was fantastic, I was devastated. My mental health was shit. He had stopped sleeping, had developed a fear of driving, intrusive thoughts and we thought a form of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder).

A holiday, meditation, the NHS and most importantly things have improved tremendously and I hope they have burned that damn bulge. On vacation in Greece, I saw the most beautiful rainbow, I was pregnant when I got home.

Jessica announced her engagement to Nicholas in November 2019 when she shared a snap of her sparkling engagement ring on Instagram.

The soap opera star captioned the post: “Being with someone you can be completely yourself with.”

‘Someone who makes you want to be better, kinder, eat more fruits and vegetables. So of course I said ‘yes’.

They secretly got married in 2020 and she shared her happy news on Instagram at the time with sweet snaps of her and her new husband.

Captioning the photos, Jessica apparently revealed that they decided to tie the knot after their dream ‘planned wedding’ was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

She wrote: “While we wait for the wedding, we plan to move on… we thought we’d get on with the business of getting married.”