Laura Anderson has shared details of her daughter Bonnie’s birth and admitted it was “horrendous”.
The former Love Island star, 34, welcomed her first child with ex Hollyoaks actor Gary Lucy, 41, earlier this month and had quite the birth story, including a vaginal tear and a postpartum haemorrhage that she said was “mentally quite torturous” for her and resulted in a loss of 1.6 litres of blood.
Taking to Instagram, the new mum also revealed that she had undergone four sweeps – a procedure believed to initiate labour – followed by “horrendous contractions” after receiving a non-hormonal cervical balloon to induce labour.
Speaking in the candid clip, she explained: “I was in the hospital and I was only one centimetre dilated but I just felt no one was taking me seriously.”
She further described the intensity of her contractions, occurring every minute and a half, and the mental anguish of knowing she had a long way to go without pain relief as she wasn’t admitted to the labour ward until she was four centimetres dilated.
The Scottish native then told how she began bleeding upon reaching the delivery room, and within an hour, she had dilated from four to nine centimetres, relying on gas and air for relief.
She said: “When I was at 9cm I said, ‘f**k this s**t give me the epidural I can’t do this’ and then they were like ‘it’s too late, we are going to give you something else’.”
Ultimately, Anderson said she was left feeling relief and gratitude and as if the “gods were with me” when she was finally administered an epidural.
“As soon as I stopped needing the gas and air I was like ‘Hallelujah’,” she continued. “I even had a nap, they scheduled me a nap and said, ‘at half five we will begin pushing’.”
One small mercy was that little Bonnie was born after just three pushes.
Anderson recalled: “They got her out, she cried straight away, she was really responsive and alert it was amazing. I was talking to her, she really liked that.”
However, the ordeal wasn’t over yet. She suffered a second-degree tear during delivery and required stitches. Five hours later, she experienced a severe haemorrhage, losing significant amounts of blood and clots, which left her feeling extremely faint.
In the back of her mind, she knew that she needed to keep calm, explaining: “I just stayed calm because I thought, ‘I’ve got everybody around me that needs to be here doing everything they can’ so I am a bit better in emergencies like that than like smaller things, if I stub my toe it’s the end of the world.
“It’s weird - it must be the cabin crew in me,” she quipped.
Despite the rollercoaster to motherhood, she has said it wouldn’t put her off having more children in future.
“Obviously it’s all worth it and I would do it all again.” she said.
There is one thing that she would do differently though as she shared some hard learned pearls of wisdom for any mums-to-be.
“But I do think don’t be the hero – get the epidural at 4cm. You’ll just have a nice time,” she advised.
