Madeleine White Opens Up About Her ‘Traumatic’ Labor Experience
Influencer Madeleine White is sharing her candid labor experience.
“Alright, you want to hear my birth story? Here it is. For the first time, I’m putting a trigger warning at the start of my video. If you’re pregnant or sensitive to traumatic birth stories, you might want to skip this. So, where do I start?” White recalled in her TikTok video on Wednesday, July 1. “Honestly, it begins when you all diagnosed me with preeclampsia in the comments when I couldn’t remove my rings after a round of golf.”
She went on, “This happened when I was 31 weeks along. Suddenly, my hands became extremely swollen overnight—my wrists, face, ankles, and feet. I shared a video of me trying to take off my jewelry without thinking much of it, and then the comments flooded in asking, ‘Do you have preeclampsia?’”
White mentioned that she rushed to the hospital, where her blood pressure was monitored every 10 minutes for three hours. She stated that she was told she didn’t have preeclampsia and felt “quite f***ing humiliated” after returning home.
In the following week, White visited her doctor and was diagnosed with gestational hypertension and underwent another preeclampsia test, the results of which she did not receive. After returning home, she woke a couple of days later feeling “really terrible.” Later that night, she discovered she was bleeding and went back to the hospital.
“One of the worst moments during this whole labor experience was standing in the lobby while they asked for my ID and insurance as blood was rushing down my legs. It felt like the biggest emergency ever to me, but to them, it was like, ‘Could you spell that again?’” She described the overnight doctor as initially “unsure” if it was a placental abruption.
She added, “I was bleeding, but the doctor said, ‘You’re not bleeding heavily enough for an immediate c-section.’ They checked for amniotic fluid in my blood, which was present. However, she candidly told me, ‘I’m not sure what the best course of action is given how early you are. We might be able to keep the baby in a few more days and give you steroid shots to develop Juliette’s lungs. The bleeding might stop, and we might be able to keep you here.’”
White was advised to “go to sleep,” mentioning she felt “no pain” and didn’t realize she was in labor. She recalled nurses coming in to inform her that her contractions were occurring closely together. When her OB finally checked in, she was delivered the news that she had preeclampsia.
“Just as the doctor checked on how much I was bleeding, I felt a significant gush. They said, ‘No babe, you’re having this baby right now.’ The preparation time for the c-section was the scariest moment of my life,” she recalled. “I kept repeating to myself, ‘Mum did this. Your friends have done this. Many people you know have done this. You can do this. Don’t panic; the baby needs you.’”
She concluded, “While performing my c-section, the doctor said, ‘Oh, this was indeed a placental abruption.’ Thankfully, Juliette was admitted to the NICU, and I did not face any further complications after childbirth. I was discharged two and a half days later, and Juliette arrived home after a three-week stay in the NICU. It was not the labor experience I would have preferred for my first child, and it definitely makes future pregnancies more complex.”
“She made a grand entrance just like her mother! 💅🎀🤍,” White captioned the video.
In June, White announced that she and husband Andrew Fedyk welcomed their first child, a girl they named Juliette, at 33 weeks.
