The daughter of comedy legend John ‘Strop’ Cornell and actor Delvene Delaney has revealed how she lost her unborn child just three months before giving birth.
Actress Liana Cornell, 34, shared the heartbreaking news, just months after being told she would never be able to have children, in a lengthy Instagram post on Sunday.
She said she was forced to terminate her daughter’s pregnancy nearly six months after doctors detected serious complications and “deformities.”
“Over a year and a half ago I was six months pregnant,” she posted. “Single and pregnant, two things I never imagined I would be.”
The 34-year-old admitted the traumatic loss of her first child occurred during one of the worst years of her life after losing her father and splitting from her lover.
‘My father died, my fiancé and I broke up a week before our wedding, and I was diagnosed with a degenerative disease (which I am now curing).
‘A close friend committed suicide, my hometown suffered the worst flooding on record and members of my family nearly died due to random events.
‘I couldn’t travel home because of everything that was going on in the world at the time, (and) Britannia hadn’t been renewed.’
Liana Cornell (pictured) is best known for her role in the historical fantasy drama Britannia from 2017 to 2019. She also appeared in Wolf Creek and East of Everything.
Her future father, John Cornell, is pictured with his wife Delvene Delaney in Sydney in 2006.
The Byron Bay-raised star explained that she became pregnant the first time she was intimate with the child’s father, after a year of celibacy.
The miracle pregnancy came just a month after she was told she would be unable to have children of her own.
But joy turned to anguish and then to unspeakable tragedy in a matter of months.
“At first, the father was excited and told me he wanted to have countless babies with me,” she said.
“He told me he’d never been so in love… and then he left, quickly and coldly, for no reason at all.”
As she nursed her broken heart, she realized that her unborn daughter, whom she named Nymphaea, had only shed one molt during her six-month pregnancy.
“I went to get an ultrasound and my world was shattered once again,” she wrote.
“The baby had deformities. The odds were already against us, but I thought we would make it.”
Liana Cornell became pregnant after a year of celibacy, and just one month after being told she couldn’t get pregnant.
The actress shared a photo of her growing belly on Instagram.
She explained that the baby’s head was too big, the heart too small and the stomach swollen. On medical advice, she was forced to terminate her pregnancy within a two-day period in the hospital.
“After losing the baby, I suffered from severe postpartum depression and didn’t realize it,” she wrote.
“My hair started falling out, my body stopped working.”
It was the beginning of a spiraling decline in his health, he revealed.
“I was bleeding for four months from places I shouldn’t be bleeding from, nothing to do with the baby, everything to do with this (unnamed) ‘disease,'” she said.
Her health finally began to improve when she started seeing a new specialist, she said.
“She operated on me immediately and, in the end, gave me hope,” she wrote. “She also has this rare disease and doesn’t believe it is such a big cause of death.”
Now, 18 months after the devastating loss of her son, Liana says she finally feels “healed and ready.”
“While I was unable to give birth to Nymphaea, I was able to give birth to myself,” she wrote. “I am new, fresh, powerful in my truth, healed, ready.”
The actress was forced to terminate her pregnancy after six months due to malformations
John Cornell played Strop on The Paul Hogan Show (pictured with Hogan and his co-star and wife Delvene Delaney)
Liana shared a childhood photo with her father John ‘Strop’ Cornell
The actress is the goddaughter of iconic Australian actor Paul Hogan.
His father, John Cornell, produced Crocodile Dundee, and was Hogan’s beloved, goofy sidekick on his television show in the 1970s and ’80s, co-starring his wife Delvene Delaney.
The couple married in 1977 and had two daughters, Liana and her sister Allira. Cornell subsequently developed Parkinson’s disease and died at his home in Byron Bay in July 2021 at the age of 80.
Liana graduated from NIDA in 2012. She is best known for her role in the historical fantasy drama Britannia from 2017 to 2019. Other credits include roles in Wolf Creek, Love Child and East of Everything.
Last year he bought a 6-hectare Northern Rivers retreat near Mullumbimby for $2 million.
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