Hollyoaks star Jorgie Porter introduces newborn baby at her stunning home with fiancé

Actress Jorgie Porter is looking incredibly relaxed as she invites us into her Greater Manchester home to meet the family’s latest addition – their newborn baby daughter. “It’s all about teamwork,” laughs the Hollyoaks star, as we watch her fiancé Ollie Piotrowski expertly multitask around the house while carrying a very fast-asleep baby Peony Porter Piotrowski.

The family, which also includes their son Forest, two, and Ollie’s 10-year-old son, Alfie, who lives with them half of the time, have clearly adapted very well to the arrival of a new baby since they brought Peony home from hospital. Jorgie, 37, has even managed to grab 10 minutes to herself this week – in between nappy changes, snack runs, breastfeeds and micro naps – to apply some fake tan, she told OK! during an exclusive chat. And while it may not be her best work, she’s taking it as a win.

“It’s a bit patchy but who cares?” she laughs, as Forest joins her on her lap. “There’s a lot going on at the moment, and a lot of just swapping babies over because Forest wants to be held as well.”

Despite the inevitable chaos of the arrival of a newborn and the lack of sleep that goes with it, Jorgie and Ollie, who turns 36 this month, are completely besotted with their daughter, who was born at 10.40am on 10 December, and came home from hospital the next day.

Forest and Alfie, who visited them in hospital on the day she was born, are loving being big brothers – or at least Alfie is. “Forest is still wrapping his head around what’s going on,” Jorgie tells us.

Peony was delivered via a planned Caesarean section, and when we ask her birth weight, Jorgie, who is a little over 5ft 2in, bursts out laughing and responds with, “She was a whopper!”

“I knew she was going to be big because I felt massive the second time around,” she grins. “She was officially 8lbs 14oz but I’m rounding it up to 9lbs because I’m tiny and feel like a hero! She was just a little chunk. When the nurses pulled her out after the C-section, I thought, ‘Thank God I chose another section because there’s no way I’d have had her naturally.’”

The couple, who’ve been dating for five years and engaged for three, announced the pregnancy in May, just six months after Forest turned one. Her floral name had been top of their list since Forest was born, Jorgie says, and keeping it under wraps for two years wasn’t easy.

“We’d not heard of anyone with the name Peony and I love the flowers, they’re so beautiful,” she beams. “But we were literally desperate to tell people her name before someone else had a baby and chose it before us! We didn’t give her a middle name because she’s Peony Porter Piotrowski which is already quite a lot for a kid to say, isn’t it?”

Peony was born just a few weeks after Forest’s November birthday – and a few weeks before Jorgie’s Christmas Day birthday – so it’s been an endless stream of presents and celebrations in the house, which is definitely helping little Forest adjust to such a big change.

Now that they’re home and settled, the actress, who first appeared as Theresa McQueen in Hollyoaks back in 2008, has finally had time to take a breath and reflect on a very emotional pregnancy. Her feelings were in part down to natural pregnancy anxiety, but compounded by her previous experience of miscarriage, which contributed to her desire for a planned birth.

“Forest’s birth went so well but I think you can still panic when you do it again,” she says. “I wanted it to be in the diary and secure, and to know exactly when it was happening. I wanted everything to be the same so I could relax – the same situation, the same people, same hospital, everything. We even got the same room.

“God bless these women who can hang on and wait for the moment when the rest of their life changes, but that’s not me. I wanted to know what was going to happen, I wanted 14 hospital staff in the room, everything. My instincts told me it was the right thing for me.”

Jorgie’s surgery lasted around two hours – but at the time it “felt like 10 minutes” – and at 10.40am, baby Peony was brought into the world, healthily crying and a little “squished”.

We imagine there were a lot of happy tears at that point? “Actually, I just remember hearing the first cry, and then Ollie saying, ‘She’s not exactly beautiful is she?’ which was the funniest thing ever. She was all squished up because she’d been head down for a good few weeks!

“When we were back in the room I looked around and realised it would be the last time I’d ever do it, so I wanted to really take it in and make the most of it. Ollie stayed overnight with us in a little bed too. It was just a dream, it was immense.”

Jorgie is adamant that Peony will be the last baby to join their family, mainly because of her complicated feelings about pregnancy. Also, she says, “There’s only been about 15 months since 2021 that I haven’t been pregnant, and I need me back, I need my body back.”

In 2021 she shared the sad news that she’d miscarried her and Ollie’s naturally conceived quadruplets, then suffered the same heartbreak six weeks into her second pregnancy the following year. So while her pregnancies with Forest and Peony were drama-free, the anxiety after suffering baby loss still remains.

“I think the panic always sits with you when you’re pregnant,” she says. “I refused to let anyone celebrate any of the milestones when I was pregnant with Forest, I was adamant about it because I was extremely stressed. This time I made a point of us trying to enjoy every minute, because even if things hadn’t gone well, I wanted to be able to think, ‘Well before that was great.’”

Given Jorgie and Ollie’s anxieties, and Peony’s size towards the end, it’s understandable that Jorgie looks and sounds incredibly relieved that the pregnancy is over and their baby girl is now happily asleep in Ollie’s arms.

“Honestly, it was the longest time,” she laughs, but clearly means it. “Margot Robbie had her baby about a week after she announced her pregnancy – I was pregnant for what felt like 100 years!"

She continued, “The trouble was that my bump popped really early so I couldn’t hide it. By the end I’d wake up every day and think, ‘Yup, I’m still a whale, I’m not getting away from this.’ So it was harder this time, but I felt like I really should enjoy it more and milk it. So if I randomly wanted to lie down, I’d lie down, I just didn’t care what other people thought. I just wanted to enjoy it.”

Jorgie’s large bump on her small frame also attracted a few unwelcome comments, but she appreciates they weren’t intended to cause offence.

“I can handle what anyone says to me but I didn’t really need all the reminders of how big I was. Also, when I walked into a room, sometimes someone would ask me, ‘Is it twins?’

“That was a bit of a tricky subject for me because obviously I’d lost quads. So I spent a lot of time saying, ‘No, it’s just a big baby.’ I can handle what anyone says to me really, but it was a lot sometimes.”

Jorgie left Hollyoaks to go on her official maternity leave last October, but as someone who “absolutely loves work and is obsessed with Hollyoaks,” it wouldn’t come as a surprise if she returned to the set in Liverpool before the year’s up.

“I love working, I‘ve been doing it from such a young age, and I did Hollyoaks and Dancing On Ice at the same time. Obviously it’s not as easy having a baby too, but maybe I’ll ask them if I can just bring Peony to the show and then ask the costume department if they can just hide her!”

When it comes to other work, there’s one show high up on former ballet dancer Jorgie’s wish list – Strictly Come Dancing.

“I miss dancing, it’s my first love,” she says. “So anything involving dance would be my dream. I cry every time Strictly comes on because I’d love to do it!”

Now their family is complete, we ask if she and Ollie have thought any more about when they might tie the knot, after Ollie’s festive proposal at Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland in 2021. But understandably, with their hands and hearts full with their two little ones and Alfie, it’s not a priority at the moment, and having a ring on her finger, as well as their children and gorgeous home, is more than enough for Jorgie at the moment.

“I love being engaged. As soon as Ollie put a ring on me, it changed things for me. I know the love is there, and also I know we can argue and still be fine together!”