She has spoken before about being ‘utterly lost’ when her baby boy Archie died minutes after being born 18 weeks early in 2009, and has never shied away from raising awareness about the devastation of premature births.
And now, nine years after his tragic passing, Kym Marsh has revealed that she still thinks of her little son every day, and wonders what kind of boy he would have grown in to.
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Speaking to the Mirror, brave Kym says that she talks to Archie, and commemorates him at various points throughout the year.
“I think of Archie every day. I still talk to him to say goodnight or I love you,” she said.
“We never got to know what kind of a little boy he was or what he would’ve liked. What colour would his eyes or his hair have been?”
Musing over what kids’ TV characters Archie would have liked, or which football team he would have supported, Kym told the paper the only thing she knows for sure is that her son should have come home with her.
Kym and her partner of the time, the Hollyoaks and later EastEnders actor Jamie Lomas, announced they were expecting their first child together back in December 2008.
They said they were looking forward to welcoming the baby the following summer. However, in a devastating statement released to the media just two months later, Kym and Jamie said their son, Archie Jay Lomas, had been born 18 weeks early and had died moments after birth.
The distraught couple went on to have a second baby together, a little girl called Polly, who is now almost seven.
Jamie and Kym tied the knot in 2012, but separated in 2013, with Kym later telling the Sun there were ‘no bad feelings’ between the pair, and that: “We have a very good relationship, Jamie and I. Polly has a good relationship with her dad.”
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Kym, 41, says she now keeps Archie’s ashes in a box next to her bed, which is engraved with the words: ““Your presence we miss, your memory we treasure, loving you always, forgetting you never.”
The family – which also consists of Kym’s older children David 22, and Emily, 20 – release a balloon each year on Archie’s birthday, and always spend time reflecting on their loss at other poignant points in the year, such as Christmas and Mother’s day.
In a few weeks time, Kym – who describes herself as ‘a mother of three and one angel’ – will host the first Archie’s Footprint Ball, an event being held to raise funds for the child loss charity, The Mariposa Trust.
“I’ve been wanting to do something like this for a very long time but I’ve never found the right time,” she said.
“Losing a child is one of the most difficult things anyone can go through, but you have to somehow find a way to carry on. I’m a big believer that out of something bad something good should come too.”