At the age of 32, Charlotte Crosby has not one but three autobiographies. "I always had this one planned," she tells us from her home in Sunderland. "When I did my first ever autobiography, I set out three title names in my head for three books. And the last one was always going to be when I had a baby. I had to do this one to complete the collection."
The latest release, Me, Myself and Mini Me, is a little different from Charlotte's first two books, focusing on her pregnancy, birth and motherhood experience with her first baby, Alba.
At the time of deciding to try for a baby, Charlotte and boyfriend Jake had been together for just three and a half months. "It was so exciting," she remembers. "There was a weird adrenaline thrill. The fact that this isn't really how it goes, but we're just gonna do it."
"When you know, you know and I did know. And I know a lot of people say that and it doesn't always work out that way, but I genuinely know that me and Jake will be together for the rest of our lives. We're like two little best friends. We are inseparable."
"I was always nervous about how difficult it would be getting pregnant again," Charlotte admits, having had an ectopic pregnancy in 2016. "I almost died. I was just going about my day and the next minute I woke up in the hospital and I'd lost one side of my reproductive organs. And I don't know whether I'm even able to even describe it. I feel like you have to go through that to understand how that makes you feel afterwards. That feeling of being completely out of control, you aren't in control of anything anymore."
The devastating experience naturally had an impact on Charlotte's pregnancy with Alba. " I was dead set that I was having a C-section because I did not want to go into a situation where something could go wrong. I wanted to choose an option where I had more control. And that was in - for me - what felt like a safer environment."
"For a while, I was thinking, 'Do I just try a natural birth?' But the only reason I felt like that is that so many people seem to not frown upon a natural birth. But then it was like, 'Why? Why would I do that for other people? And not myself?' I would only be doing it because of what other people thought. And I think that's so sad," Charlotte says. "When it comes to C-sections, people actually feel afraid to speak about it. It's a woman's choice how to deliver her baby. And there is absolutely no way that anyone should be passing judgment on that."
Charlotte's birth went exactly as she had hoped. "It was magical," she beams. "Like it was absolutely amazing. I absolutely loved it." The recovery, however, was trickier than she had anticipated.
"Any recovery is hard and I wasn't in pain as such. It was the fact that I knew I was limited in the things that I could do. And that was hard. I wanted to be able to bounce off my feet and run to the cupboard, get all of the nappies and help Jake out, but I couldn't. I wasn't that mobile. It did take about six weeks before I felt like I could even just get out of bed fast without worrying."
We're all used to being told what to expect from motherhood when pregnant but in Charlotte's experience, the reality is very different.
"The amount of negative things you hear about having a baby before you actually have one is just a joke," she says. "You could just say anything, and someone would have a negative thing to say back. So you'd be like, 'Oh, I'm really tired' and someone would say 'Oh well get your sleep now because you're not going to sleep when the baby comes along'. And honestly, I was frightened. I went into it with this weird perception of what motherhood was going to be like and it couldn't have been any further from everything that anyone ever said. I do obviously think that I've been really lucky - I've got an amazing baby. All my baby does is sleep! She's only four months old and she now sleeps from 7pm till 6am every single night."
"Now, will I be as lucky with my second child? Probably not. So let's see when I've had baby number two!"
As someone who has been in the public eye since she was in her early twenties and joined the reality series Geordie Shore, Charlotte has dealt with her fair share of internet trolls. But how has it been since she became a parent?
"Do you know what, the only bad experience I had is when I did a video," she admits. "I was putting baby formula into a travel container and I wasn't levelling the scoops because it wasn't for a bottle, it was for just to go in a container. And oh my god, the comments went wild."
"I was in a really fragile state, I'd just had a baby and I think it was three weeks after I give birth. I was dead hormonal and with the baby blues where you're fragile and you're crying at anything. And then I just lost my Nana as well. And then that really affected me because I just kept on thinking 'I'm just doing everything wrong. I'm supposed to be doing everything well.'"
"Obviously, I've had some things since and I just laugh it off. I think it's a really great opportunity for me to become even funnier! Because when people do say something, I do really funny responses. It's a great chance to be able to have a laugh with people. I know how to take care of my baby, I'm not an imbecile and I'm not going to do anything at all in the slightest that is going to cause any harm or danger to her. So that's why I don't really let it bother me, I know that everything that I do with my daughter is absolutely exceptional."
Many mums can relate to the complicated relationship that can come with our bodies pre and post-baby and Charlotte is no different.
"I don't feel like I have a good relationship with my body image. I don't feel like I look bad but just something feels different. Like who I am as a person," Charlotte tells us.
"I'm still quite bloated because of the C-section and my tummy hasn't gone down. But it's not just that. It was my first night out about two and a half months after Alba, I put on an outfit which I would normally wear and I looked at myself in the mirror. And I was like, 'I don't look right in this.' And I couldn't tell you what it was it was."
"I don't know whether it's that I have just had a baby four months ago. And maybe in time, I'll start to feel a bit better body-image-wise, but it's a really big struggle. I think I feel it more because my job is to be on camera. And when you're on camera, obviously you want to try and make yourself look nice. But every time I'm trying to make myself look nice, I'm not feeling nice."
Me, Myself and Mini Me is full of Charlotte's trademark warmth, wit and honesty, covering everything from dry vaginas to poonamis. "I don't really know how to just be anything different, it's not like I'm trying to be honest, I'm just being me," she says.
Charlotte also shares how she and Jake would love more children together in the future. "Well, I can't do anything because you're not meant to have another baby within six months when you've had a C-section. So right now, it's not medically possible. But who knows?" She pauses, counting the months in her head. "I just thought, it could be soon. It could! Maybe I could have another baby next year!"
Me, Myself and Mini Me is published by Headline and available to buy now.
