‘Born sleeping’: Hollyoaks star Kirsty-Leigh Porter announces stillbirth of baby girl

"Sleep sweetly our angel."

Actress Kirsty-Leigh Porter has announced the stillbirth of her daughter. Kirsty-Leigh, who plays Leela Lomax on Channel 4 soap Hollyoaks, gave birth in December 11 weeks early. The 30-year-old shared the news in a post to Instagram and said that she and partner Paul Barber had named the little girl Penny-Leigh.

"Our beautiful baby girl, Penny-Leigh Barber was born sleeping on the 21st of December 2018 at 6.49am, 29 weeks & 3 days young," she wrote. "My heart has never felt pain like it. "Sleep sweetly our angel. We will always love you. Love your Mummy & Daddy. "My Everything."

Kirsty-Leigh's co-stars, including Kieron Richardson and Amy Conachan, and her TV presenter friend Kirsty Gallagher, all shared messages of support in response to the news. Kirsty-Leigh and Paul announced that they were going to become parents in November. Speaking to OK! Magazine, the actress said that they were delighted to be having a baby. "We were really, really happy. You just feel everything at once," she told the publication. "With acting, you don't know when you're OK to be like, 'Let's take a year out and do this.' "You're just prepared when it happens, and we're so happy it's happened for us now."