Harry Potter star Jessie Cave has opened up about going through a miscarriage for a baby she was considering terminating.
Cave, 38, and her partner, comedian Alfie Brown, share a podcast called Before We Break Up Again, on which they spoke about the complexities of the pregnancy.
They shared that Cave, who played Lavender Brown in the famed franchise, fell pregnant on Boxing Day 2025. It came as a surprise as there were no symptoms to suggest it.
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“When it came up [as] pregnant, there was not one a lot of joy or feeling like this was right. There was just something off,” Cave recalled.
Before she could have an abortion, she was told to have a scan as her polycystic ovaries and irregular periods meant she couldn’t tell how far along she was in the pregnancy.
But she found she was “really excited”: “I wasn’t treating it as an abortion scan. I was treating it as my first early scan.
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“She [the practitioner] said, ‘Do you want to know if it’s twins?’ And I was like, ‘Can I have twins?’ I was secretly crossing my fingers, being like, ‘please be twins’.
“Then she says, ‘It’s got no heartbeat. I had to pretend like, ‘Oh, it’s not such a big deal to me’. Of course it was a big deal.
“She could tell I was unsure and she must deal with that kind of thing all the time… I did have a huge respect for her… to be told that, well, you’ve got no choice. You’re going to have to have one [an abortion] because it’s not viable,” Cave recalled.
Despite the initial disappointment, Cave admitted she was relieved the decision was taken out of her hands.
“The fact that the decision was made for us is a gift. A complete blessing,” she said.
“I did feel a deep, deep sadness, but I also feel relief that it hasn’t gone ahead because I can now have my boob job.”
The actress, who has since starred in Black Mirror and Call the Midwife, recalled feeling judged when calling abortion services.
“Even during that call, which took forever and it was the most stressful, judgmental call. I can’t believe that is what we still have to go through,” she recalled.
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“She just made me feel like I was evil for contemplating this. By the judgement in her voice and the repetitive questions about do I understand what I’m doing?
“Also because I have to admit that I have four kids and I’m not married, there was just so much judgement. I almost felt that she was going to ask me, ‘Are they all from the same father?’
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“I don’t think it’s easy for anyone to have an abortion, but I think it’s probably slightly harder for people who’ve had kids because they know what they’re losing.”
The couple share four children – Donnie, 11, Margot, nine, Abraham, five, Becker, three.
The Red Nose Grief and Loss Support Line is available 24/7 for anyone affected by the loss of a pregnancy, stillbirth or death of a baby or child on 1300 308 307.
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