Tina Malone cradles her baby, Flame, in her arms and sings her a lullaby. It might be 32 years since the birth of her last child but the Liverpool actress has taken to motherhood just as readily second time around. And while her tiny daughter might only be seven weeks old, she reveals she is already planning another one!
“Yes, I am seriously considering having another baby!” she says. “I just need to convince Paul and talk him round...”
Husband Paul isn’t quite as keen to think about another one just yet : “He was worried about me, especially when I was ill at the end,” admits the Shameless star. “But seriously, if I’m talking percentages of going for it, I’m about 70%. It would be at the end of the year when Flame is one.”
Tina raised eyebrows when she embarked on IVF to have Flame at the age of 50, and she celebrated her 51st birthday last week, but she says age is still not a bar to another babe.
“I have been so lucky. “It’s about how you live, how you treat your body, how you feel. “Obviously, if a doctor said ‘absolutely not’ I wouldn’t go against that. I’m not stupid. But if the tests said everything was fine, I absolutely would. “I would like her not to grow up an only child.”
Tina gave birth to Flame on December 15 last year, three weeks early from her planned section and five weeks earlier than her actual due date, after she developed pre-eclampsia, a condition which causes the blood pressure to soar and can put mum and baby at risk.
“I’d gone to see my GP on Friday the 13th as I’d been having headaches and heartburn for a couple of days before, and then I started getting blurred vision. “I was on the way to John Lewis to buy baby clothes but he said ‘ no you’re not, you’re going to the Women’s – now’. “I was kept in overnight but on Saturday evening at 10pm I was sitting on the bed with my coat on and a KFC getting ready to go home when the consultant came and said they were going to take her out of me the next day, as a precaution. “My first reaction was that I was going to miss the X Factor final. But the Women’s was amazing!”
The birth was filmed for a TV documentary due to be screened on February 11 for TLC, called Tina Malone: Pregnant at 50 which charts the challenges of motherhood at five decades. Tina says pragmatically that she did it as a job and to move away from the character of Mimi in Shameless for which she is best know. It wasn’t to answer those who feared she was too old for motherhood, although some relatives worried about how she would cope at her age and she says she didn’t get criticism: “I expected it but I wasn’t aware of any. If they did it was behind my back,” she says.
Because she was too old to receive IVF at the Women’s Hospital Tina was referred to a Mr Gazvani in Rodney Street. She travelled to Cyprus for the treatment using a donated egg after seeing the consultant on her 50th birthday – his previous cut off point (‘he has since sent two women for treatment at 52 after caring for me’.).
“I knew I was pregnant on the day of the transfer but I was told not to do a pregnancy test for 10 days... but I did one after seven and it was positive. “They transferred two embryos and I was having twins but I lost one. It was reported that Paul and I were devastated and I did cry. But I am grateful for what we have.”
At this Tina immediately casts an adoring gaze on her daughter, with whom she had watched a rafts of musicals the previous day.
“We watched The King and I, The Sound of Music, Oliver and Mary Poppins... and we sang every single song,” Tina smiles. “She is just perfect.”
Tina refutes claims that she had Flame to keep her younger husband – Paul is 19 years her junior: “Age doesn’t come into it.
“I had always wondered what it would be like to be with a wonderful man who would be a wonderful father. Like my father. It just took me to the age of 45 to find him. “But Paul is exactly the father I knew he could and would be – he changed the first clothes and the first nappy – and having Flame is everything I wanted it to be and more. “It’s different 32 years on. With Dannielle I was told to make up four to eight bottles at a time, now it’s one; I was told to lay Dannielle on her stomach, not it’s the back, and with Dannielle I would wash Terry nappies in Napisan before hanging them on the line to dry – now it’s disposables all the way.
“But am I any more tired? No, not at all. “I think you enjoy it more when you’re older, and you’re less selfish. I missed my first National Television Awards this year and instead of putting one of my designer frocks on I was at home, with my pyjamas on, eating mint chocolates... and I was as happy as a pig in muck. I was in pure heaven. “But I don’t have different hopes for the girls.
“For Flame, as I did for Dannielle, I want the best, to open every door for her and present every opportunity. Ultimately I just want her to be successful, happy and healthy. “Like Dannielle, Flame is my daughter and she is the most precious thing in the world. She already likes Eeyore, she likes her feet out of the blanket, she is already her own person... “When I look at her I’m in awe. I think how charmed Paul and I are to have her.”
Motherhood has consumed Tina Malone but if anyone thought it would cause the actress to slow down, they are very much mistaken.
She has already re-started hosting the quiz nights at Ma Egerton’s pub in Liverpool city centre, she is resuming teaching at MDI in Hope Street in the first week in March and she is considering a couple of acting roles she has been offered.
“I want to direct a play, do panto at the Empire, and to produce a feature film, I am due to shoot Damaged Goods for which we have done a trailer in August....” Among other things. Tina also wants to buy a car – “and learn to drive” and she will be doing signings for her new book Tina Malone: Back in Control which is published on February 27. And she wants to get back to a size eight.
“I was enormous for years and I didn’t care less. You don’t when you’re past the point of no return. But I lost all the weight to have Flame and I felt fantastic, and I want to get back to a size eight in three months... “Although I’d happily put three or four stones on again to have another baby!”
Source: Read more http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/liverpool-actress-tina-malone-having-6672110