Former The Only Way Is Essex star Maria Fowler has opened up about her traumatic birth experience and the lingering pain it left.
In an emotional blog post, Maria describes her experience in detail, expressing heartbreak at missing out on her baby’s first hours.
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“I know I am lucky that a few days later we took home a beautiful baby girl,” Maria wrote, “however, nothing quite prepares you for missing the birth of your first born child.”
Maria and her fiancé Kelvin Batey welcomed their first child 16 months ago and had prepared ahead of time for how they thought the birth would go.
After being concerned about a breech birth for a while, they had discussed the possibility of a caesarean section beforehand, but Maria was desperate for a natural birth.
When the baby turned of it’s own accord, Maria an dKelvin were relieved, and proceeded with their plan, with Maria making it clear that she wanted an epidural.
After a smooth beginning of labour – aside from having to have her waters manually broken – things started to go wrong in the delivery room.
The baby was positioned badly, with her head blocking the delivery. After local anaesthetic failed to work, Kelvin was made to leave the room and Maria was put under general anaesthetic.
Maria lost a lot of blood during the procedure and had to stay in hospital receiving transfusions, and was unable to leave her bed to tend to her new daughter – “my first 3 days as a mum I felt a complete failure,” she said.
“I was left feeling somewhat violated. I didn’t have time or space to come to terms with what was about to happen.
“And this is going to sound really odd, but when I think of my body I have a vision of this hole left inside me where she was taken from.
“I missed the transition from pregnancy to her making her first cry- the part I had been excitedly watching on ‘One Born Every Minute,’ and because of this there is a piece of my chapter of motherhood so far that is missing.”
After receiving a wave of support in response to her blog, Maria took to Instagram to express her gratitude.
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“I can’t believe how many crazily strong women follow me on Instagram. That’ sounds really cheesy but it’s really true,” she said.
“I have read every single one of your stories, and I can relate to a lot of them, a lot of them are a lot worse than mine.”