In a new interview with Dr. Thais Aliabadi and Mary Alice Haney on the “She MD” podcast, Sofia Richie Grainge shared the scary details of her third trimester.
Grainge, the youngest daughter of legendary singer Lionel Richie, welcomed her first child, a daughter named Eloise into the world in May.
“I had a great pregnancy up until about 32 weeks” the 26-year-old mom told Dr. Aliabadi and Haney.
But that all changed when Richie “woke up one morning” and knew something was wrong.
“I texted Dr. A and was like, ‘Hey, I woke up and I’m really tired today. My back really hurts. I feel a little crampy.’ And I really thought it was going to be another one of those, ‘Yeah, babe, that’s pregnancy. You’re going to be fine, but you can come in if you want me to check you’ type situations.”
But that’s not how Dr. Aliabadi reacted. Instead, the doctor told Grainge, “she was like, ‘You know what? Actually, I think you should go see the fetal specialist to monitor, to make sure that everything’s okay, and then you’ll go home. It’s not a big deal,’” the new mom recalled.
“I was really terrified. Thank God she said that, because they hooked me up to the monitor and they were like, ‘You’re in active labor.’”
Grainge was admitted into the hospital and monitored for the next six days. After being released from the hospital, Grainge was put on bed rest.
And for the next six weeks, she remained in active labor. “It was intense.”
At 38 weeks, Grainge was induced.
Despite the difficult weeks she had just endured, Grainge told the She MD podcast that she “had a fantastic delivery.”
“I gave birth and I was like, ‘Wow, I really did that.’ I did six weeks or however many weeks of contractions and I have my beautiful daughter. I’m healthy. I’m safe. She’s healthy. She’s safe.”
Unfortunately, Grainge wasn’t out of the woods yet.
“I went home and I blew up like a balloon” she recalled. “Quite literally, just swelled. I felt very ill… So (Dr. A) sent over her wonderful nurse and my blood pressure was 165 over 103.”
As Dr. Aliabadi explained, Grainge was suffering from postpartum preeclampsia.
According to The Mayo Clinic, postpartum preeclampsia is “a rare condition that occurs when you have high blood pressure and excess protein in your urine soon after childbirth.”
Grainge was admitted back into the hospital.
“The hardest thing I ever had to do, I think literally, was leave my daughter two days postpartum,” Grainge said, admitting the “mom guilt” kicked in almost immediately. “It was horrendous. I actually hid in the closet and cried.”
“And my poor husband was like, ‘I have to get you to the hospital because the doctor is saying it’s just not safe. It’s not safe that you’re home.’”
“So I spent 24 hours in the hospital and it was really, really, really hard.”
Now, Grainge is three months postpartum, and she says she is “finally feeling like myself again.”