Mel C. Wasn't "Ready to Tell the World" About Pregnancy

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Expectant mum Melanie Chisholm, aka Mel C., has already said that she will only be taking parental advice from her own mum — and that’s the story that she’s sticking to! Even though her fellow Spice Girls have "said they’re only a phone call away to pass on any parenting tips," Mel is just happy her mother "will be there to guide and advise me." Grandma-to-be is "very excited" and "has looked forward to having grandchildren," Mel shares.

Although the singer and her partner Thomas Starr had "found out a while ago" that they were expecting their first child, they intended to keep the pregnancy a secret for as long as they could. However, speculation started in August when the 34-year-old performed at the Echo Arena with a stomach that looked suspiciously bump-ish.

"I was starting to show when I performed at the Echo arena and I was a bit self-conscious about that. I knew I would be showing a bit by then, but I wasn’t ready to tell the world."

While the Spice Girl did announce that she was pregnant after that performance, sharing that the baby will arrive "early next year," don’t expect to hear about the sex — not even they want to know! Mel, who says she and Thomas have started considering names, explains, "We will be happy if we have a boy or a girl and we won’t find out before [the delivery]."

Source: Echo

Comments

She’s very head strong right now, but I’m betting she’ll realise she could very much use the advice of the women she spent so much time with and who have a lot of experience at being parents.

It’s great that she’s taking advice from her mum, but I get the impression from her that she’s thinking she can handle it all and be supermum, which is a common thought among first-time expectant parents in my experience, but is unrealistic. Perhaps she’s a little disappointed that she is the last Spice Girl to have a baby and she doesn’t want their advice because it might be a tad patronising, but I think if I were her, I’d love having four friends who’d all done it before to help her out here and there. When I had my daughter, I was the first amongst my friends to have a baby so I didn’t have that resource, but I sure as hell could’ve used it when times were tough. I hope Mel feels able to accept help once her baby arrives, just knowing that there is a support network there is sometimes enough, whether or not you do actually have to use them.

Congrats to the couple.

- phoebe on September 12th, 2008

I’m so, so happy for Melanie and I’m sure she’ll be a great mom. But she really was insistent on keeping the pregnancy quiet for as long as possible – just a couple of weeks before she announced the pregnancy, she gave an interview saying she wasn’t planning on having kids anytime soon. And when fans started speculating on her official website forum that she was expecting, she posted a message saying that she didn’t appreciate the speculation. And, according to an article from yesterday, she’s 18 weeks along already, so she waited until 16 weeks to confirm. She does like to keep her private life very quiet, though, so I guess it’s no surprise.

- Elizabeth on September 12th, 2008

I didn’t get any impression that she is trying to be a supermom or she’s being stubborn to accept advice. Honestly the article doesn’t give me enough info to get any real impressions in what kind of mom she’s trying to be.

Perhaps she’s getting all sorts of different info from various people now and it’s a little overwhelming, who knows.

- J on September 12th, 2008

Elizabeth- Actually, I don’t think she waited THAT long to announce her pregnancy. If you do the math, 16 weeks is about the same as 4 months, which is when most women (celeb or not) announce their pregnancies.

Most women want to wait until they are out of their first trimester, and thus their risk of miscarriage is much lower (women can and do have miscarriages in their second trimester, but those don’t occur nearly as often as first trimester miscarriages do) before announcing.

- CelebBabyLover on September 13th, 2008

Yeah, I realize 16 weeks isn’t a massive amount of time to wait to make an announcement. I just usually think of people waiting to around 12 weeks – but I guess everybody does it in their own way! I’m just most amused, in restrospect, by her effusive denials.

- Elizabeth on September 13th, 2008