Linda Chung Shares “Painful” Birthing Story, Says She Almost Needed Emergency Surgery After Delivering Her Daughter

If you want to feel inspired by what mothers go through to bring you to this world, look no further than Linda Chung, whose, um, vivid recounting of her delivery might move you to hug your mum or make you think twice about natural childbirth.

The 37-year-old has been based in Vancouver ever since she tied the knot with her chiropractor husband Jeremy Leung, 49, in 2015, and is focused on raising her two kids, Kelly, five, and Jared, three.

Yesterday (Mar 28), the Hongkong actress decided to share a video about the “unbelievably painful” birthing story of her daughter Kelly.

As Kelly was her first pregnancy, Linda didn’t realise she was having contractions until almost 12 hours later.

She started feeling “something weird within [her]” at around 7pm, but instead going to the hospital, she decided to adopt a wait-and-see attitude and went to bed.

“Plus, in Vancouver if you are not 5cm dilated yet, the doctor will tell you to go home,” she reasoned.

It was too late by the time she arrived at the hospital

Turns out she was already 8cm dilated and it was too late for her to have an epidural.

She had to wear an oxygen mask during labour and her mother-in-law gave her cold water and popsicle sticks to cope with the pain.

“When it was time to push, I told the nurse to write my daughter’s name Kelly on the white board with a heart circled around it. And every time I had to push, I just looked at Kelly’s name and [pushed],” she said with a pained expression.

Another source of strength for Linda was her husband, who was by her side during delivery, and she also thought of the experience her own mum went through giving birth to her and her siblings.

“It felt like I was being burned down there,” she said. “You don’t even need to push at the end. When the baby’s ready, it just shoots out. It was just so painful.”

Kelly was doing well, but not Linda

But that wasn’t the end of the trauma for Linda.

An hour after delivering her baby, the nurse told her to go to the bathroom and try relieving herself.

“But when I got up, it felt like a murder scene. I took two steps and started gushing blood. It was going all over the floor,” she recalled.

Though Linda blacked out, “inside [she] was awake” and could hear the doctor saying they had to “open the emergency room to do reconstructive surgery” on her.

“Once I heard that, I woke up and I was like ‘No! I can pee, give me chance’,” she said.

“They had to place me in the birthing position to examine me and that was more painful than giving birth!” she exclaimed.

Thankfully that experience did not stop her from having another child

Fortunately, the doctor decided to monitor her overnight and the swelling began to go down so she didn’t require surgery.

“For natural births, you get to go home the next day, but I had to stay in hospital for another three days,” she said.

Photos: Linda Chung/Instagram, YouTube