Former Love Island star Olivia Bowen has said that she thought she was going to die during the birth of her second child with husband Alex.
The 31-year-old, who appeared on series two of Love Island, had an emergency C-section and blood transfusion after tearing her uterus in two places while welcoming her daughter Siena Grace in August.
“I thought I was going to lose my life,” said the reality star, who originally planned a home birth but was rushed to a hospital to undergo emergency surgery following a severe bladder prolapse.
The couple dubbed the ordeal the “scariest” experience of their lives, with Alex telling The Sun that the atmosphere in the delivery room changed when he was “the colour drain from Olivia’s face”.
“It was really really scary,” Alex said of the moment Olivia began to slip in and out of consciousness. “There is nothing you can really do without being positive for your wife, I guess.”
Olivia lost three litres of blood during the delivery and was given two blood transfusions by doctors.
“They passed her to me and I remember her laying on my chest and then the room just changed. I don’t know what happened,” she said. “I felt so faint. It was the scariest thing.”
The reality star spent months recovering from the traumatic birth and suffered severe health anxiety, as well as anaemia and infection. She and her partner confirmed they have no plans for more children.
Olivia and Alex first met in July 2016 while starring in the second season of Love Island, when they fell in love on the show. Two years later, they officially tied the knot before welcoming their baby boy Abel in 2022.
The couple also experienced a traumatic birth when Abel was born after a gruelling 30-hour labour. “He wasn’t breathing when he came out,” Olivia recalled, adding the experience left her with PTSD.
Olivia said she thought of her two-year-old son at home as she began to lose consciousness after welcoming Siena. “It’s such a blur but I do remember thinking ‘what have I done?” she said. “I’ve left Abel at home and now I’m going to lose my life.”
