Zoe Birkett exclusive

Trigger warning: This episode contains discussion of miscarriage and pregnancy loss. If you think you may find this difficult to listen to and read, please choose another episode.

“I think I was always meant to be a mum, and I never knew that at all,” stage star Zoe Birkett tells Gi in this week’s episode of Happy Mum.

“I just didn’t think I’d be able to love something as much as I did as music. But yet I love it way more, and it’s a completely different love.”

As a little girl, Zoe’s dreams of becoming one of Britney Spears’ backing dancers shifted focus the day she sang, on request, for Prime Minister Tony Blair and his family at a christening.

The nation then fell in love with 16-year-old Zoe in the first series of Pop Idol in 2001, and she has since starred in numerous musicals, including The Bodyguard and Moulin Rouge! All this alongside the challenge of a hip replacement following years of severe osteoarthritis - and the joy of welcoming daughter Aria into the world with husband Adam.

Unfazed by the daunting logistics of motherhood mixed with matinees and late West End curtain calls, Zoe has navigated parenthood thanks to strict rules around bedtime face times and Saturday night “midnight kisses” and sleepovers with Aria.

But after celebrating her second pregnancy with close family, Zoe suffered a miscarriage - a trauma which coincided with her role of a lifetime, as Tina, in The Tina Turner Musical.

“I loved being Tina,” she tells Gi. “It has been the highlight of my career because I found a sound that came naturally to me… I was the fittest I’d ever been, so I was physically able. I’d had my hip replacement done, so therefore I was like, ‘I can do anything you want!’ I felt invincible at that time. I was like, ‘If anyone can be pregnant successfully right now, it is me’.”

Zoe and Adam received the devastating news about their baby during the first scan, and Zoe was rushed into emergency surgery in the days following. But with her Gala Night and 40th birthday just two weeks away, she made the difficult decision to go back to work - and only confided in her Dresser.

“She was checking my dresses to see if I was leaking,” she says. “All these things that I could have just done at home, I had to do on stage. But again, it was my choice… being in that space was also therapy for me as well. It was such an escape… The audience are on their feet clapping, and there were so many times I was like, ‘You’ve got no idea what I’m going through.’”

Zoe finished an incredible year at work processing her loss in private, with fan photos of her secret yet visible bump providing unexpected comfort as she battled feelings of guilt.

“I feel like we feel a little bit ashamed about speaking about it,” she tells Gi. “Like, it’s because it’s our body, it’s our fault… I now come to understand that it’s extremely common. It happens to so many of us…”

As Gi shares her own experience of miscarriage, and the “freeing” process of talking about it, Zoe reflects on her decision to speak openly about her loss, and why connecting with others became such a powerful source of comfort…

Listen to Zoe’s story in full in this week’s podcast episode, from today - wherever you get your podcasts.Watch the episode in full on YouTube

There is information and support for anyone who has experienced the loss of a baby, whether through miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, or termination for medical reasons at tommys.org