After eight gruelling rounds of IVF spanning three years, Atomic Kitten star Liz McClarnon has finally welcomed her miracle baby. The 44-year-old singer announced the arrival of her baby boy on November 2, 2025, sharing a heartwarming hospital bed selfie with husband Dr. Peter Cho. “Little man arrived early,” she wrote on Instagram Stories, giving followers a thumbs-up. “It started out a bit scary but all went well in the end.”
For McClarnon, this moment is two decades of fertility struggles. It’s a victory that seemed impossible at times, especially after enduring three failed embryo transfers in 2022 and two devastating miscarriages in late 2024. But here’s the thing about this Liverpool-born singer: she’s never been one to give up easily.
McClarnon’s fertility journey started way back in 2009 with a health scare that would change everything. What began as a feeling of faintness quickly escalated into emergency surgery for a suspected ectopic pregnancy. Doctors discovered she wasn’t pregnant at all, but they found something else: her fallopian tubes were completely fused together.
“Having thought even briefly that I might never be able to have my own children made me realise what agony that would be,” she reflected at the time. That revelation launched nearly 16 years of uncertainty about whether motherhood would ever happen for her.
Fast forward to mid-2021, when McClarnon met Peter Cho on the dating app Hinge during lockdown. They hit it off immediately, meeting in person that July and moving in together shortly after. But when doctors discovered fluid around her ovaries and told her that natural conception at over 40 was unlikely, the couple made a bold decision. They’d start IVF treatment in early 2022, remarkably early in their relationship and even before their 2023 wedding.
IVF Cycles
The first IVF cycle in 2022 brought crushing disappointment. “The first time we did it, I thought, ‘this will be it,'” McClarnon told OK! Magazine. “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.”
The hormone treatments caused significant weight gain for McClarnon, which led to cruel comments online. People started saying she was “getting really thick” or looked “unrecognizable.” The worst part? She couldn’t even explain why because she didn’t want IVF to define her entire identity.
“I’d put on so much weight but I didn’t want to tell anyone why,” she revealed. “I was still doing shows and I’d see the comments online talking about me. I tried to remember that those people didn’t know what was happening, but it was hard.”
After the third failed cycle around their wedding, McClarnon declared she was done. She needed a break. Christmas 2024 in her “tiny two-bedroom flat” with her parents visiting from Liverpool provided unexpected healing. “That time actually helped me heal,” she shared.
They decided to try again. But late 2024 brought fresh heartbreak when McClarnon experienced two miscarriages following their first successful IVF cycle. Can you imagine getting your hopes up after finally seeing those positive results, only to lose them twice?
Throughout this emotional rollercoaster, Dr. Peter Cho proved to be McClarnon’s rock. His response to her struggles was precisely what she needed. “He didn’t say anything other than, ‘This is your body and I’ll support whatever you decide you want,’ which was a huge thing for me,” she told The Mirror. “I felt so bad emotionally, it was really tough.”
The couple had married in June 2023 in a secret ceremony at Broadoaks Country House Hotel in the Lake District. McClarnon fiercely protected Peter’s privacy, keeping his face hidden from social media until their first wedding anniversary in June 2024. She even took the double-barreled surname McClarnon-Cho.
“I’m just really grateful for what we found, and I genuinely hate the cheesiness of it, but I just knew it was right,” she said. “On the outside we seem so different, but we’re actually the same.”
Pregnancy Announcement
When McClarnon finally announced her pregnancy on May 13, 2025, the emotional video filmed in her garden captured years of pent-up hope and fear. She initially tried to convey the news to her followers, but got too emotional. Instead, she stood up from a bench to reveal her baby bump.
“After years of sometimes quite painful IVF and quite dark times… I’m pregnant!” she shared. “We feel like we’ve been given the world!”
The response was overwhelming. Within hours, half a million people had viewed the announcement. “I really didn’t expect people to be interested,” she later reflected. “I just thought I should probably put it out there before someone else mentioned it.”
Celebrity friends rallied around her. Bandmate Natasha Hamilton wrote: “Literally couldn’t be any happier for you both! After all you’ve been through, this little miracle is everything.” Michelle Heaton added: “So unbelievably happy for you both. I know how the road has been unkind to get here.”
During her pregnancy, McClarnon fell into the high-risk category due to her age. She needed aspirin, blood-thinning injections, and monitoring for preeclampsia. When she appeared on Loose Women at five months pregnant, she revealed the baby’s gender and became emotional watching her story played back.
“It’s strange. When you hear someone else tell it, it almost feels like it happened to another person,” she said.
A week before giving birth, she posted a comparison photo next to her pregnant mother with a humorous caption: “I got a message the other day saying ‘I feel like you’ve been pregnant for forever!’ So do I! So. Do. I.”
In July 2025, she shared a video montage showing how being “on hormones more often than not” over three years affected her physical appearance. Her body fluctuated between “sometimes normal and sometimes very not.” It was a raw, honest look at the reality of fertility treatment.
The weight gain, the online body-shaming, the “dark holes” following failed cycles, the miscarriages. These aren’t topics people usually discuss openly, but McClarnon made it her mission to normalise these conversations.
“The whole process made me truly appreciate that having a baby is a miracle,” she reflected. “There are so, so many things that need to happen correctly for someone to get pregnant, and for that to result in a healthy baby.”
Baby McClarnon-Cho
After eight IVF cycles, three failed transfers, two miscarriages, and decades of uncertainty, McClarnon and Peter are now adjusting to life as first-time parents.
The couple hasn’t yet announced their baby boy’s name or shared photos beyond the hospital announcement.
For McClarnon, this experience changed her understanding of conception itself. What many people take for granted, she now sees as the miracle it truly is.
“I just can’t believe we’re here,” she wrote in her pregnancy announcement. “So many have been through exactly what I went through and worse.”
After years of painful treatments and dark times, Liz McClarnon finally has her miracle. And judging by that thumbs-up hospital selfie, she couldn’t be happier about it.
