EASTENDERS actress Kellie Bright has revealed the special meaning behind new baby Rudy’s middle name.
Kellie, 45, shared the news of her ‘miracle’ baby with husband Paul Stoker earlier this month after missing the National Television Awards.
The soap star gave her baby boy Joy as a middle name and explained that she would have chosen it regardless of the gender.
The couple did not know the gender until the birth, but had opted for the middle name Joy – after Kellie’s late Nana.
“Joy was my nana’s name and I said that whether we had a boy or a girl, I would really like the middle name to be Joy as she meant such a lot to me,” she told OK Magazine!
“We weren’t sold on Rudy until about a week before I had him, but it’s been on my boys’ list for a while and was definitely around when I had Gene. All the girls’ names I really like, my husband didn’t!
“If he’d been a girl he probably would have been Robyn Joy.”
Kellie went on to reveal that she was induced at 37-and-a-half weeks as medics were worried about the size of the baby and claimed that an induction is “really awful thing to put a woman through”.
The TV star then explained that although her labour lasted for two days, the delivery was “quick” and “intense” after her midwife performed a sweep and her waters broke as she was wheeled to the labour ward.
Kellie added: “He arrived 20 minutes after I got to the labour ward and all I had was gas and air.
“I didn’t want an epidural this time because I wanted to feel everything – it’s somewhere in the middle. It was all so quick but it was the birth I wanted.”
Last week, Kellie announced that she had welcomed her third child, her “miracle” boy, with husband Paul with the help of IVF.
Kellie has been an EastEnders star since 2013, when she joined Albert Square as landlady of the Queen Vic – Linda Carter.
Kellie suffered criticism after falling pregnant at the age of 44 – and hit back saying “nobody would bat an eyelid” if she was a man.
The star, who is already mum to sons Freddy, nine, and Gene, four, went through a “rollercoaster ride” during her IVF journey that was delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
But some felt she was “too old” to be growing her family.
Actress Kellie previously explained how the couple required IVF treatment after “struggling to get pregnant” with their second child Gene.
The soap star said she was 39 when they tried the treatment for the first time, managing to get “four, good strong embryos”, one of which became her son Gene.
Kellie and Paul then had to use the following three embryos trying for their third baby, with their “miracle” third chance working out after “the first two embryos didn’t work”.
She explained that the pair decided to try for a third child at the end of 2019 but their plans were put on hold by the coronavirus outbreak.
