Claire Danes had a "meltdown" when she got pregnant with her third child.

The Beast In Me actress - who has Cyrus, 13, Rowan, seven, and a two-year-old daughter with husband Hugh Dancy - was stunned when she found out she was expecting her daughter at the age of 44 because she didn't think it was "physically possible" to conceive naturally any more.

Asked if she "burst into tears" at the thought of going through pregnancy again, Claire told Amy Poehler on her Good Hang podcast: "Totally.

"I called my OBGYN in convulsive tears. It was a pure like ... meltdown.

"None of this was by design. I didn't know it was physically possible. I was 44. And actually, Rowan was very hard-earned. I had to do two rounds of IVF."

The 46-year-old star admitted she had looked up the odds of "naturally conceiving" at her age and it was less than one percent, and she recalled talking to her best friend about the possibility of being pregnant before confirming it, and her pal had had a dream about being inside Claire's body.

She added: "I had two strong cocktails when we had dinner and the next morning I hit the CVS and [the pregnancy test] was bold and caps lock pregnant and I burst into tears."

The Romeo and Juliet actress described her pregnancy as "deeply humbling" and she couldn't be happier.

She said: "Then this beautiful girl emerged and she's the best. None of this was up to me and I'm just delighted."

The Homeland star previously admitted she felt a "funny shame" at getting pregnant in her mid-40s.

Speaking on the Smartless podcast, Claire explained: "I did not foresee this at all. And it was weird. Suddenly, I felt like a funny shame.

"I was naughty. I had been caught fornicating past the point I was meant to. No, it was weird, and it was like I found an edge that I hadn't been quite conscious of -- like I was going outside of the parameters a little bit."

Claire also never imagined having kids who are so far apart in terms of their ages.

The actress reflected: "It's a trip. I mean, I have a teenager and a toddler at once."