Scheana Shay spoke candidly about the “really scary turn” her child’s delivery took in a Friday, May 14, podcast episode.
The Vanderpump Rules star, 36, welcomed her daughter, Summer, now 2 weeks, in April. In the little one’s Instagram debut, the Bravo personality revealed she’d been diagnosed with preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome.
“We caught this just in time to treat as it’s very unusual to be caught so late, in postpartum,” the California native told her Instagram followers at the time. “Until this morning, I was on a magnesium drip that made me extremely lethargic and flu-like, shivering uncontrollably to the point where I felt like I was seizing. Having not caught this condition in time, that would have been likely. I am still being monitored closely for elevated liver enzymes and low blood platelets and not sure how much longer we will be here.”
The reality star, who didn’t return home from the hospital for three days, further detailed the frightening moment on “Scheananigans With Scheana Shay,” explaining that her “liver was struggling.”
The new mom told listeners on Friday: “I was borderline about to have a stroke or a seizure. … The fact that they caught it, I am so lucky. It literally is a life-threatening disease, and it could have been fatal. It’s the second highest cause of death in pregnant women.”
During Shay’s more than 24-hour labor, the “One More Time” singer was on a magnesium drip that not only made her lethargic but affected Summer as well. “It made poor baby Summer so sleepy,” she explained. “She had a low heart rate.”
The Azusa Pacific University grad added that her baby girl arrived “limp” and wasn’t crying, leading Shay to initially believe she’d delivered a stillborn. “It was a lot of scares,” she recalled.
Shay’s partner, Brock Davies, and her sister, Cortney Van Olphen, recorded the infant’s arrival, and the birth vlog aired on YouTube on Wednesday, May 12.
The “Good as Gold” singer sobbed when she saw her daughter for the first time in the emotional footage, saying, “Hi, baby. Oh, my God. You’re here. Hi, baby. It’s OK. We did it, Summer. We did it.”
Now two weeks into parenthood, Shay gushed about life with her infant, calling her a breast-feeding “champ.”
