Melissa Johns, an actress from Coronation Street and Grantchester, is getting ready to have her first child, but she says cruel trolls won’t stop her from feeling empowered by her appearance.
Melissa Johns couldn’t be more excited to welcome her baby girl with husband Dan. The Coronation Street and Grantchester star is gearing up for the arrival of her first child – but being pregnant has changed her life in more ways than one.
The actress – who is best known to TV fans for playing Miss Scott in the ITV period drama – says being pregnant has made her feel empowered after growing up being told her body was “limited” after she was born without a right forearm or hand.
Melissa has documented her pregnancy in the way most parents do, with a gorgeous bump photoshoot. But for Melissa, these images represent more than just her own journey.
“It gives me such a powerful feeling. People have commented on, judged, and put their own limitations on it, she exclusively says, “I’ve spent a lot of my life with people telling me that my body is limited” and I’ve grown up not seeing people with body differences in bump photo shoots. I feel limitless when I grow and carry a baby. It’s wonderful to experience growing up feeling like I could never grow up and feel free to grow up.
Melissa wants to change the narrative because she was raised being told that finding love and having children was impossible for her and that she “just needed to love herself.”
“I didn’t learn to hate myself from the beginning – it’s the world we live in. It’s a really tricky one to navigate. Me hating and loathing the body I have growing up, that wasn’t a product of me and how I felt about my body,” she says.
“It was the result of what I was told I should feel about my body,” she said. People commenting on my body now that I’m pregnant haven’t come as a shock to me because even when I was young, I was taught I was special and brave.
She continues, “I’ve grown up with it.” Although it’s strange when it’s not about my limb difference, it’s about my baby bump. That seems much more commonplace. It demonstrates how obsessed we are with our bodies, whether good or bad. We are obsessed with how we look, as a country, and having the bump has helped with that. It’s really nice to have something new to discuss.
Most mothers are questioned and probed about how to handle the arrival of their child. Melissa has had to deal with even more of these unsolicited questions because of her limb difference.
“Sometimes, people will ask, “How will you manage?” What will the baby’s mother expect? How will you hold the baby simultaneously for a coffee with your friends? People do ask those questions, she says, and I’m making an effort to figure it out as well. It’s unfortunate that people are so intrigued by it because they don’t see it very much.
Melissa has been open about her fears for both herself and her daughter despite all the excitement surrounding the birth of the child.
I’ll be surrounded by a lot of kids when my little girl is a little older. Even at my age, I still have a lot of questions that every child asks. Children who ask lots of questions have always made me feel so afraid and intimidated. If I hear what other people think of my body, will my young girl think she needs to stand up for me? Does she think she needs to defend my side? Will she care to tell me something? Will she worry that she “hears things from people”? she informed us.
It won’t be long before Melissa is gracing our screens once more, but what does the birth of her baby mean for her acting career has made her question.
“As actors get more anxious when they are pregnant, we rarely see them working.” Our careers worry us. Being a disabled actor, I had to work extra hard to show the industry that I can play any character, and it doesn’t have to be about disability. I’ve been worried about how having a baby will affect my career. What does it mean that I’m expecting a baby now that I’ve overcome those barriers?
Melissa is also biding her last farewells to a significant chapter of her life as she prepares to welcome her child. The actress has spent six years filming her final scenes as the ITV drama is about to come to an end.
“I’ve been filming for five months to nine months,” I said. The cast has been amazing, and they’ve all given me small presents for the baby, she says.
“I recently started watching that program. It saw me through Covid, it saw me through my ex-partner’s eight-year separation, and it saw me through the slumber of my house and the slumber of my friends in hotels. Dan and I met, got engaged, and we bought our first home. We were married during the final season, and we were planning to give birth the week before the baby was due. Many people are unable to live that way. How fortunate was Grantchester to me throughout all those ups and downs.
It’s obvious that Miss Scott will be accompanying Melissa as she welcomes her young daughter with husband Dan, despite the season’s end.
