Liz McClarnon, 44, admits feeling like she has been 'pregnant forever' as the Atomic Kitten star displays her 'huge' bump in latest update ahead of welcoming her first child

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By GERAINT LLEWELLYN, SHOWBUSINESS REPORTER

Published: 13:20 EDT, 27 October 2025 | Updated: 13:26 EDT, 27 October 2025

Liz McClarnon has admitted feeling she like she had been 'pregnant forever' ahead of welcoming her first child with husband Peter Cho.

The Atomic Kitten star, 44, who announced in May she was expecting after eight rounds of IVF, took to Instagram with a candid update on Sunday.

Liz declared her bump was 'huge' before posting a throwback snap of her beloved mum, who was pregnant at the time with the star's younger brother, to show their remarkable resemblance.

The songstress looked stylish in snaps from her recent visit to The Baby Show at London's Olympia in a figure-hugging polar neck sweater and leggings.

She captioned the post: 'I got a message the other day saying “I feel like you’ve been pregnant for forever!” So do I! So. Do. I.'

'My tummy is huge now isn’t it?! And don’t you think I’m the spitting image of my mum when she was pregnant with my little brother'.

Fans rushed to comments to send the singer their best wishes and reassure her she was nothing but glowing.

'You are looking beautiful. You're not huge. You are so much like your mum': 'Never huge darling you are a vessel carrying life, you look amazing': 'Looking wonderful': 'You look great and are glowing .i hope the rest of your pregnancy goes smoothly. Not long to go I think'.

Liz and her husband Peter started their IVF journey early on in their relationship, as Liz explained that they were both conscious of her age - 40, at the time they met.

In 2022, the couple had three failed embryo transfers, which took a mental and physical toll on Liz. 'The first time we did it, I thought, "This will be it,"' she recalled to The Mirror.

'But by my third cycle, it was obviously very different. When that one didn't work, I was really quite sick and I was in a dark hole.'

'I'd put on so much weight but I didn't want to tell anyone why, because I didn't want the IVF to become my identity, my whole personality.'

Liz previously revealed how she coped with the hormonal imbalances she faced.

A full cycle of IVF takes around three to six weeks to complete and hormone medications play a crucial role in stimulating the ovaries to produce multiple eggs and prepare the uterus for implantation.

Taking to Instagram earlier this year, Liz uploaded a montage of snaps from the past few years, which detailed her treatments with husband Peter Cho as well as the side effects of the medication.

Liz captioned the video: 'After 8 IVF cycles within 3 years, as you can imagine, I’ve been on hormones more often than not.

'I just wanted to share how it can look. Sometimes normal and sometimes very not.'

Liz's clip began with her looking drained as she mused: 'sometimes you could tell', before cutting to an energetic shot of herself captioned: 'sometimes you couldn't'.

She then shared a video of Peter helping her with her injections on their first attempt at IVF, explaining that 'life carried on as normal'.

As the cycle continued and she needed more injections, she confessed: 'I started to gain weight... of course that didn't matter'.

Yet she admitted she ended up feeling 'a little bit broken' as the cycle continued.

How does IVF work?

In-vitro fertilisation, known as IVF, is a medical procedure in which a woman has an already-fertilised egg inserted into her womb to become pregnant.

It is used when couples are unable to conceive naturally, and a sperm and egg are removed from their bodies and combined in a laboratory before the embryo is inserted into the woman.

Once the embryo is in the womb, the pregnancy should continue as normal.

The procedure can be done using eggs and sperm from a couple or those from donors.

Guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommends that IVF should be offered on the NHS to women under 43 who have been trying to conceive through regular unprotected sex for two years.

People can also pay for IVF privately, which costs an average of £3,348 for a single cycle, according to figures published in January 2018, and there is no guarantee of success.

The NHS says success rates for women under 35 are about 29 per cent, with the chance of a successful cycle reducing as they age.

Around eight million babies are thought to have been born due to IVF since the first ever case, British woman Louise Brown, was born in 1978.

Chances of success

The success rate of IVF depends on the age of the woman undergoing treatment, as well as the cause of the infertility (if it's known).

Younger women are more likely to have a successful pregnancy.

IVF isn't usually recommended for women over the age of 42 because the chances of a successful pregnancy are thought to be too low.

Between 2014 and 2016 the percentage of IVF treatments that resulted in a live birth was:

29 per cent for women under 35

23 per cent for women aged 35 to 37

15 per cent for women aged 38 to 39

9 per cent for women aged 40 to 42

3 per cent for women aged 43 to 44

2 per cent for women aged over 44

 

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