“SHE recently revealed she’s found happiness with a new lover after her search for the perfect “Chelsea boy” on hit TV show Married at First Sight came to nothing. But reality star Laura Vaughan has been harbouring another secret. 6 Married At First Sight star Laura Vaughan found out she was seven months pregnant Credit:”, — write: www.thesun.co.uk
But reality star Laura Vaughan has been harbouring another secret.
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Married At First Sight star Laura Vaughan found out she was seven months pregnantCredit: Supplied / Laura Vaughan
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And after she was discharged from the hospital, things worsened for the starCredit: Getty
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Laura rose to fame on MAFS alongside then-husband ArthurCredit: E4Laura, 35, underwent a heartbreaking medical abortion after unexpectedly finding out she was almost eight months pregnant.
She endured the painful and heat-wrenching procedure after doctors told her she had been unknowingly putting her unborn foetus at high risk of “extreme” harm and severe birth defects by taking a powerful drug to treat her acne.
The medical abortion in 2016, when she was 26, left Laura struggling to make sense of what had happened.
“It was very difficult because I went from not thinking I was pregnant to being seven months pregnant to then having a very prolonged abortion and where I was so far gone,” she told The Sun in an exclusive interview.
“Then, when I got home from the procedure, my milk came in, which, as you can imagine, was just really hard to deal with.
“I hunkered down at home for weeks and didn’t talk to anyone.”
Multiple labour attemptsLaura, who starred in Married at First Sight (MAFS) in 2023, initially thought it was “impossible” when a Clearblue digital pregnancy test revealed she was expecting.
And she was even more stunned when doctors told her she was in the third trimester.
Although the former finance manager had been suffering from bloating and missed periods, she claims she had been told the symptoms were likely caused by a “ruptured cyst”.
She’d gone to see a GP about her symptoms – including bloating and pain in her stomach – but she’d explained that they looked at her medical records and noticed that the year before she’d had a ruptured cyst and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), and said that was “likely the cause again”.
They referred Laura for a scan which, she says, she kept forgetting to book.
Laura was still able to “squeeze into size 6/8 dresses” while not being aware of her pregnancy, and considered her weight gain to be down to bloating the entire time.
She said: “It was literally the week I decided to test that my stomach popped, and I remember thinking ‘this isn’t right’.”
Recalling the moment the Clearblue test came up with the phrase “2-3 weeks [pregnant]”, Laura, now an influencer, said: “My first thought was ‘that’s impossible’… but then I realised that is how the tests display it, so I could’ve been pregnant for months – and I was.”
Clearblue’s ‘weeks indicator’ test is designed to be reliable in the early stages of pregnancy.
Laura’s shock at her cryptic pregnancy soon turned into an unimaginable ordeal when she learned the strong acne drug she had been taking, isotretinoin, can cause birth defects.
Dr Jonathan Kentley, a consultant dermatologist, explained: “Isotretinoin [also known as Roaccutane] is the most effective treatment we have for severe acne and, for many patients, it is a cure for their distressing condition.
“Whilst the medication is usually well tolerated, it must be prescribed under the expert supervision of a consultant dermatologist as there is a potential for side effects.
“Importantly, isotretinoin is extremely harmful to the unborn foetus, leading to birth defects.”
Often called a stealth pregnancy, cryptic pregnancies sometimes lack the symptoms you may expect, and symptoms like fatigue and nausea are usually mild enough to pass off as a stomach bug.
According to the experts at Flo, there are a few causes of a cryptic pregnancy.
“The primary cause of a stealth pregnancy is hormones. Let’s look at some of the physiological reasons why a person might have a cryptic pregnancy,” they explained.
“If someone was recently pregnant or recently gave birth, it may take time before their hormones return to their regular cycles. During this time — or as long as a person is breastfeeding — they may start ovulating without knowing it, which can result in a cryptic pregnancy. Similarly, perimenopause can lead to irregular hormone cycles and cause a cryptic pregnancy.”
You can still get pregnancy if you’re on birth control, but if you continue to take birth control the usual symptoms of pregnancy may go unnoticed or vary slightly.
“Stress also influences hormones, so high stress can disrupt common pregnancy symptoms. Low body fat can also trigger hormonal imbalances, which might cause a symptomless pregnancy. Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which causes irregular or elongated hormone cycles, can also cause a cryptic pregnancy.
“A secondary, less common cause of cryptic pregnancy is certain psychological conditions. Called a “denial of pregnancy,” it occurs when someone mentally believes they aren’t pregnant, despite tests showing that they are.”
Though Laura had been using protection in the bedroom after being warned about the dangers of pregnancy by her dermatologist, she fears a condom may have been out of date.
“Two methods of highly-effective contraception, such as the contraceptive pill and condoms, are essential during treatment if sexually active, as well as monthly pregnancy tests,” Dr Kentley added.
Due to the risk of birth defects to her foetus, Laura was offered a medical abortion – and, with a heavy heart, she accepted it.
“That whole time of my life was incredibly challenging and I didn’t feel emotionally equipped to deal with the weight of the situation,” the former TV bride told The Sun.
Recalling the hospital procedure itself, she added: “I went for the abortion and I was meant to be in and out within a day and a half but I ended up being in for nearly a week.
“They could get me to contract but couldn’t get me to full labour, and so I was having contractions and then [they were] stopping.
“It was agony. It was just so awful for my state of mind, too, going into labour multiple times and then nothing.”
That whole time of my life was incredibly challenging and I didn’t feel emotionally equipped to deal with the weight of the situationLaura Vaughan
Laura, who had a failed love match with tennis coach Arthur Poremba, 38, on MAFS, described how she broke down to a midwife, saying she was terrified that the reason why her body wasn’t responding to the abortion was because she wasn’t meant to do it.
And in another heart-wrenching confession, she admitted she wanted to take it all back, but couldn’t.
“It impacted me so heavily. All of it,” she said of her ordeal.
Laura – who had been previously told she had a low chance of getting pregnant naturally due to her “really bad” PCOS – claimed her experience at the hospital was terrible.
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After her abortion, Laura said she felt like she had ‘no real support’Credit: Supplied / Laura Vaughan
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The 35-year-old says she’s been put off having children as she ‘doesn’t want to be reminded of what happened in 2016’Credit: Supplied / Laura VaughanShe alleged they “forgot” to feed her on multiple occasions, not bringing around lunch or dinner because she was in a wing out of the way of the normal ward.
And, when Laura was eventually discharged, things didn’t get any easier.
As well as struggling with her milk coming in, and confining herself to her home, Laura told us: “I was so nervous to go back to work because I knew people had started to notice the bump on my last couple of days prior to the abortion when my stomach had just ‘popped’.”
She continued: “I imposed extreme restrictions on what I ate so that, in my mind, my body would go back to the weight I was pre-pregnancy and no-one would know.
“Looking back, I realise I was also desperately trying to regain control of my life, and this was just another mental health symptom of that.”
‘No real support’ Following her medical abortion, Laura felt like she had “no real support”.
“I felt as though the support for miscarriages versus a planned abortion had huge disparities,” she said.
And the long-term impact of Laura’s abortion on her mental state followed her all the way to MAFS years later.
She made the decision not to tell the show’s producers about her ordeal because she wasn’t ready to address it, and she didn’t want to be “plunged into a situation every day where [she] was made to talk about it”.
Yet Laura said she found being on the Channel 4 programme “very confronting”, given the fact that she and Arthur were constantly discussing their past, their future plans, babies, and their marriage.
I think we need to move away from the ‘shame’ narrative around abortionLaura Vaughan
Laura described her TV husband as “very traditional”, admitting she found it difficult to talk about how important children would be for him.
“I think what it has taught me is that it’s better to be honest about everything in your past if you’re on a reality show, and that’s what I’d encourage others to do with the show producers,” she said.
“Even if you think something isn’t relevant, my experience was that these things have a way of coming out, even if you think you’ve suppressed it.
“And when you’re in an intense filming environment that requires you to give so much of yourself to the process, inevitably your feelings will come to the surface.”
Nearly a decade on from her cryptic pregnancy, Laura said she wants to help break the stigma of abortion, and the “shame” that often surrounds it.
“I think we need to move away from the ‘shame’ narrative around abortion,” she said.
“For me, I carried that shame through to new relationships and it’s only recently that I’ve realised I shouldn’t feel any shame and I’ve been able to open up about what happened confidently.”
She added: “I really buried it until MAFS and then the show kind of brought all these feelings out again.
“I want to shed light on the silent weight so many women carry.
“We need to bridge the gap between miscarriage and abortion – both are profound losses, yet, sometimes, one is met with compassion.
“And I hope to challenge the stigma, support others in similar situations, and work alongside charities and educators to create a society where all reproductive experiences are treated with understanding, not judgement.”
Laura, now in a happy and serious relationship, has been put off having children because she “doesn’t want to be reminded of what happened in 2016”.
The star has been sharing photos with her new man on social media, with many of her 115,000 followers expressing their joy that she has found happiness.
“I wasn’t expecting to find love so soon after MAFS,” confessed Laura.
She added: “We spoke about my abortion and he’s the first partner I’ve told about it for a long time.
“He’s been incredibly supportive, and we have discussed having children but neither of us see children in our future.”
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Laura is smitten with her new boyfriend – and she says neither of them see children in their futureCredit: Supplied / Laura Vaughan