The actress has welcomed her first baby, a daughter who she ‘can’t take her eyes off’, with her husband, Dan Hampton, one year after they tied the knot in a romantic Hertfordshire ceremony.

The soap star, who is known for her role as Imogen Pascoe in the ITV soap from 2017 until 2019, shared one intimate photo of them walking down the hospital corridor with their bundle of joy snuggled up in a car seat, and another of a bassinet, which showed two tiny feet poking out of the top.

In a sweet caption, Melissa wrote: “Our baby girl is here. We can’t take out eyes off you,” alongside the emotional post, which was also accompanied by the song Can’t Take My Eyes Off You by Frankie Valli.

The glowing new mum also told The Mirror: “I thought I’d felt most emotions by this point in my life. Or at least emotions I could compare to other experiences.

“But I have never felt anything similar to this. The love, the magic, the hormone dips. It’s a rollercoaster. And one I’m so so grateful to be on.”

Melissa, who was born with only one arm, added: “I’m so lucky to be doing this with Dan. He’s carried us both for 9 months and continues to do so now. He’s quite literally my right arm.”

It follows after Melissa recently opened up on her pregnancy and gushed about how ’empowered’ and ‘limitless’ she felt when growing her daughter.

She previously told the Mirror: “It feels so empowering to me. I’ve grown up not seeing people with body differences in bump photoshoots and I’ve spent a lot of my life with people telling me that my body is limited.

“Having a limb difference, people have commented on it, judged it and put their own limitations on it. There’s something about growing and carrying a baby that makes me feel limitless. Growing up feeling people were limiting me to growing a child and feeling limitless, it’s a lovely feeling.”

The disability activist revealed her pregnancy to her online followers in June alongside a picture taken on the beach with husband Dan.

She wrote alongside an image of a baby scan photo and some booties on a sandy beach: “Oh Baby [shooting star emoji] We made a wish and it came true… Baby H-J – we can’t wait to meet you [purple heart emoji] Forever grateful.”

Before giving birth, she explained that people would ask how she would cope, adding: “That just adds an extra layer of anxiety to the pressure that all first-time mums feel.

“We’re all worrying, how does this work? And on top of that I’m thinking, ‘What about when my husband is at work – will I be able to find a one-handed pram that I can collapse with one arm? How will I get the pram in and out of the car on my own? How will I drink a cup of coffee with my friends while holding the baby?’

“I feel like saying, ‘I don’t know yet, I haven’t worked it out, but I will find a way.'”