Former Coronation Street actress Catherine Tyldesley has revealed she has named her newborn daughter Iris.
The 38-year-old announced in April that she had given birth to her second child with her husband Tom Pitfield.
Tyldesley told Hello! magazine that she played a character called Iris Moss in the BBC drama Lilies in 2007 and she had “loved it ever since”.
Their daughter’s middle name Ella is a tribute to Pitfield’s late grandmother.
Tyldesley also shared the first image of her baby girl as part of a family photoshoot with the magazine at her home in Cheshire alongside her husband and their seven-year-old son Alfie.
She said: “These first few weeks have been so precious. I’ve been living my best life.
“Iris will find her own way and decide what she likes. But for now, I’m going with the pink. I am a very girlie girl.”
The baby was born on April 19 at St Mary’s in Manchester weighing 8lb. Tyldesley revealed she was two weeks overdue and so had to be induced.
The actress, who used hypnobirthing and meditation music, explained that it remained a slow progress at the hospital until suddenly she felt the baby arriving and then she was born “within minutes”.
She added: “Even though it was super-fast and we were both in complete shock, it was a beautiful birth.”
Tyldesley said she feels more relaxed with her second child than they did with Alfie, noting: “With our first baby, we didn’t have a Scooby-Doo what we were doing and I think I tried to cope on my own.
“If you talk to other mums, it can really help.”
The actress also suffered from insomnia and hyperemesis gravidarum – severe nausea and vomiting – during her pregnancy.
She said: “With no sleep, you just can’t function.
“I wasn’t socialising. Even when my friends said ‘Let’s do a baby shower,’ I said ‘I can’t. I’ve not got it in me.’”
Tyldesley confirmed she started sleeping again a couple of days after the birth and is now excited to meet people and show off her newborn daughter.
The actress announced she was leaving Coronation Street in December 2017 and her final scenes aired in August 2018, having played Eva Price for seven years.
Read the full article in Hello! magazine out now.
