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Topics: Celebrity
Aisha Nozari
Model Ashley Graham has revealed she lost ‘litres’ of blood and fell unconscious when giving birth to her twin boys in January.
Graham and her director husband Justin Ervin welcomed Roman and Malachi at the beginning of the year and are also parents to son Isaac, who is two.
Graham, 34, has recalled in raw detail the complications that took place on the morning of her twins’ birth, which started when she haemorrhaged at her New York home at 2am.
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In a frank and inspiring new essay for Glamour, Graham explained that she went to the bathroom at 3:45 am thinking she needed the toilet, however her first twin, Malachi, came out just as her doula arrived.
Graham welcomed her second twin, Roman, two hours later in her bathtub, however her health quickly took a turn for the worse. The doting mother recalled turning to her midwife and saying she ‘didn’t feel good’ before blacking out.
She shared: “When I finally came to, I looked around and I saw everybody. They just kept saying to me, ‘You’re fine. You’re fine. You’re fine’. They didn’t want to tell me that I’d lost litres of blood.”
Graham went on: “They didn’t want to tell me that one of the midwives had to flip me over, press her finger down right above my vagina bone to try and stop the bleeding.
“And they didn’t want to tell me that the vein in my arm kept collapsing and they couldn’t get the needle in for the Pitocin, so they’d had to put it in my hand.”
However, Graham quickly realised just how serious the situation was when she looked around and saw ‘blood literally everywhere’, prompting her to let out ‘a deep, visceral cry’.
Graham was so weak that she couldn’t get up and walk to bed, so she was rolled on a twin-size bed sheet down the hall and into her guest bedroom, where she remained for four whole days.
The model was unable to walk for a week and stayed in her apartment for almost two months recovering.
Revealing why she’d chosen to open up about such a traumatic experience, the doting mum said she ‘believes in the importance of honesty’.
She also explained that childbirth has changed the relationship she has with her body, and she wants to inspire other women to love the skin they’re in.
Graham is known for her body positive advocacy and in 2015 featured as Sports Illustrated’s first plus-size model.
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