Home and Away star Ada Nicodemou has opened up about an “extremely difficult” time she went through in 2014.
Speaking to Stellar, the 42-year-old spoke candidly about giving birth to her stillborn son Harrison while she was eight months pregnant and opened up about just how challenging the last few years have been for her since.
“The past five years really tested my positive personality. Life will never be the same again; there will obviously be a hole in your heart,” she told the magazine. “We will always remember that child and what could have been.”
While dealing with the heartbreak of losing a child, Nicodemou said her mother and her brother helped her while she grieved, yet she knew she “had to be strong” for her eldest son, Johnas, seven, who she shares with her ex-husband Chrys Xipolitas.
“A lot of people come up and say sorry about Harrison, but I found that really difficult because I don’t want to break down in front of them,” she told Stellar.
“I’ve had counselling, and I’ve just gone back again. It’s going to be an ongoing thing, because I want to get in a better place where I don’t freeze up when he’s mentioned.”
Aside from having a “really great family”, Nicodemou also said that her filming schedule with Home and Away kept her busy.
“Home And Away has been my saving grace. We are like a family. We all really genuinely like each other. And we have fun. I mean… we’re not curing cancer.”
The former Heartbreak High star and Xipolitas announced in March 2014 that they were expecting a baby boy — Harrison — in New Idea. Tragically, in August that year, Harrison was delivered a stillborn.
Prior to welcoming Johnas in 2012 via IVF, Nicodemou sadly suffered a miscarriage.
Shortly after welcoming their first child, she separated from Xipolitas and divorced him in 2016 after nine years of marriage.
Currently dating businessman Adam Rigby despite everything she’s been through, Nicodemou told Stellar that she is “really happy.”
“I’m smiling again. And I’ve got this great relationship. I’m a hopeless romantic. Life hasn’t beaten that out of me.”
