Heartache Of Our Vanished Twin, By Married Love Island Stars Olivia And Alex Bowen. Couple Break Silence On Shock And Grief, Reveal What Happened… And Tell Of Traumatic Consequences

They were the first Love Island couple to marry, but even before the confetti had been swept up a chorus of doubters were predicting they’d divorce. Yet almost ten years since first meeting on the show, Olivia and Alex Bowen have just welcomed their second child, daughter Siena, to complete their family of four.

It hasn’t been easy though, and their roller-coaster past year has taken in pregnancy joy, ‘vanishing twin syndrome’ and a near-fatal birth. Now their new six-part TV series Olivia And Alex: Parenthood covers it all, lifting the lid on family life with all the fragility and chaos that goes with it. ‘This is 100 per cent the most vulnerable we’ve ever had to be on TV,’ says Olivia, 31. ‘It’s been challenging, but we now have a little boy and a little girl – we’re so lucky.

‘If we were going to do it, it had to be realistic and raw not glossy – not just all the best parts of our life. We’ve never let cameras in like this before. What you see is very much what you get with both me and Alex,’ says Olivia. Alex, 34, nods: ‘There’s enough of that gloss on TV. We want something honest.’

Just weeks after finding out Olivia was pregnant they had to deal with the heartache of vanishing twin syndrome. ‘We went in expecting to see one baby on the screen and there were two,’ Olivia recalls. Alex was shocked. ‘Seeing two babies when we were expecting one was probably the biggest surprise of my life,’ he says. ‘It was the most amazing feeling.’

But the following weeks were traumatic. ‘We went for the eight-week scan and as soon as she showed us my belly, you could see there was no heartbeat and no movement from one of them. I couldn’t look at Alex because I knew he’d be heartbroken. It was such a shock because there’d been no signs,’ says Olivia.

‘Then every scan we went to we’d see one baby thriving and the other slowly disappearing. One just stops developing and then dies in the womb. It reabsorbs into your body and eventually just disappears. So it’s like it never existed.’

Alex and Olivia grieved differently. ‘It always hits me really hard straight away,’ says Alex. ‘I took myself off to the bathroom to cry because I could see how much pain she was in.’ But Olivia says, ‘I felt numb at the start then I needed to talk. But I try not to take anything negative from it any more – we’re lucky to still have Siena here.’

But her birth was terrifying too. It began calmly until Olivia felt something was wrong. ‘We ended up having a C-section, and I had a really bad haemorrhage. I lost 2.8 litres of blood,’ she recalls. ‘We didn’t know what was going to happen but we got here safely in the end. You realise what you’ve got and what matters. You realise how fragile everything is.’

Before all of this there were other shadows. Olivia has spoken previously about an earlier emotionally abusive relationship that left her wary and anxious. Meeting Alex on the second series of Love Island series in 2016 restored her trust.

‘I think that was one of the reasons I went in to be honest, I just needed to do something for myself and I was at a bit of a crossroads. I wasn’t happy and didn’t feel like I had anything, so I just thought, “What have I got to lose – let’s just go for it.”’

It paid off when Alex arrived on day 18 as ‘a bombshell’ and she coupled up with him two days later, with them going on to finish as runners-up on the show.

They’ve consistently described their connection as an immediate spark but Olivia admits, ‘At the start, I was very untrusting because I had my trust broken previously, so Alex would always be very patient. He’d sit me down and give me the time of day. We literally could be ourselves, our weird selves,’ she smiles.

And Olivia has helped Alex overcome his demons too. He talks quietly about how the suicide of his best friend pushed him to use his platform to talk about men’s mental health and now he channelled his grief into endurance challenges for charities such as Mind. ‘I need to be doing something a little bit more. I’ll get a few people messaging me saying, “You’ve really helped me,” and that just makes my day – the fact I’ve just helped one person.’

They faced a barrage of judgment as soon as they emerged from Love Island. ‘It was a huge culture shock. The hardest part was everyone having an opinion. At the start, that was very hard to deal with,’ Olivia says. ‘Someone has an opinion of me, but that’s literally none of my business.’

But it’s parenthood that has given them the gift of perspective. ‘Suddenly I turned 30 and I literally don’t care anymore. After having kids, other opinions just fade away,’ says Olivia.

First time around Olivia struggled with postpartum anxiety, but this time she’s anchored by experience and can pass on advice to other parents. ‘Just trust yourself,’ she says. ‘Try and slow down. It’s hard the first time around but you’re the mum – you know best.’

They’ve also learnt a lot as a couple becoming first-time parents as they now check in rather than drift. ‘We had a bit of a breakdown in communication,’ Olivia admits when Abel was born. ‘But this time we realised that we just need to speak to each other more and be open.’

Alex, meanwhile, says the sentiment that underpins their family – and their new show – is determination: ‘We’re not quitters. When times are tough, we just work through them.’

• Olivia And Alex: Parenthood, Sunday, 8pm, ITV2.