'Bachelor' alum Krystal Nelson Bowles shares tragic birth story

WARNING: Graphical instructions for childbirth and emergency surgery

Bachelor Alumna Krystal Nielson Bowles tells her tragic birth story.

On Wednesday, December 3, Nielson Bowles, 38, starred in “ Bachelor Back in 2018, just before appearing in Season 5 bachelor in paradise Later that year, she opened up about welcoming her second child, son Rowan, in a candid Instagram post. She and husband Miles Bowles are also parents to daughter Andara, whom they welcomed in 2021.

After “a week of recovery at home and follow-up discussions with doctors,” the reality star explained how she was finally ready to share her story, describing the birth as “the most traumatic experience we've ever had.”

Nielson Bowles recalled that she “went to the hospital for a scheduled induction of labor with umbilical varicose veins” on November 14, which was what prompted them to induce their daughter Andara's labor early. According to the Mayo Clinic, they are “bulging, enlarged veins.”

Health coaches said Andara's birth “felt like a gift” and they thought their second child would be “faster and gentler”.

After 33 hours, Rowan still hadn't shown up, Nielson Bowles said, adding that she was “completely exhausted and sleep-deprived,” so she eventually “agreed to get an epidural” so they could break her water and hopefully “speed things up.”

She explained in the post that for her second birth, she “wanted to really feel the contractions,” which she did “because the epidural didn't work at first,” but two and a half hours later, she was “full” and “ready to push.”

“As the team gathered together, a double rainbow — bright, incredible, perfect — streaked across the sky outside my window. We all cried. In that moment, it felt like heaven itself leaned in and said 'I found you,'” Nelson Powers wrote, sharing a photo of the rainbow with several others on her birth journey.

“You started pushing hard, but after an hour, something didn't feel right. Ron had stopped going down,” recalled Nielson Bowles, who added that she was induced for a total of 37 hours, and after nearly three and a half hours of pushing, the obstetrician came to check on her, and shortly after that “there was blood.”

“It felt like everything unraveled in seconds,” Nelson Powers recalled, sharing how Rowan was “stuck” under her pelvic bone and “wedged in a way that made vaginal delivery impossible.”

The reality star said she discovered Nelson Powers' “uterus had ruptured” after her doctors tried to rotate baby Rowan, adding that “within seconds the whole code team rushed in” and she was rushed to an emergency C-section while she was still awake.

Nielson Bowles shared that before she saw her son's face, her son “swallowed a large amount of blood during the rupture and was rushed to the NICU.”

“The initial Apgar score was 2, a high level of acidosis, and they didn't know if he was deprived of oxygen long enough to cause brain damage,” she wrote. “Not being able to see him, touch him, not even knowing if he was going to make it through those first few hours was a pain I can't express in words.”

Nelson Powers said that over the next “merciless” 10 minutes, multiple people “hurriedly worked to free” Rowan while her “body was pulled and moved with such force that Miles had to support” her shoulders and hold her down as she “cryed in agony.”

“Rowan's shoulder protruded from the severe tear on the right side of my uterus, making it extremely difficult to remove him,” she shared. She admitted that she would “never forget the gurgling sound” she made, “the panic in the doctor's voice, or the agonizing moment of waiting to hear Rowan's first cry.”

Nelson Powers said doctors later told them that if they hadn't been admitted and operated on so quickly, “either or both of us wouldn't have made it.”

“As soon as he came out, they put me down there to repair my uterus, which was in tatters — shredded, spread apart, and refusing to be stitched,” she recalled, adding that doctors managed to perform an “absolute miracle” in saving her uterus.

However, she said the family was “strongly advised not to have any more children” due to the high risk of re-rupture “due to the massive vertical tear from top to bottom”.

“Since we had been planning to have a (third) child, it was shocking to hear the news,” Nelson Powers said.

Rowan then underwent 72 hours of hypothermia treatment, cooling his body to 92.3 degrees Fahrenheit “to protect his brain.”

Neilson Bowles first met her son when he was two days old and she finally got to hold him on the fourth day, “once he was warm again and there were no seizures or brain damage.”

She said, “Thanks to everyone's prayers and God's grace – every test came back normal,” and on the sixth day, the family walked out of the NICU with their “miracle baby.”

“The weight of this Thanksgiving is beyond our imagination,” Nelson wrote. “We looked death in the face and were given life – a raw, trembling, amazing life.” He added that the family experienced “miracle after miracle.”

From now on, she said, the family will “have a new family tradition” every year on Rowan's birthday and will “take a dip in the ice-cold water together” to remember what Rowan's body temperature felt like “when the world was in balance.”

“We will tremble, we will cry, we will laugh, we will stand – because this is the story of our son who came to us, and we will never let ourselves forget the cold that forged his unbreakable heart,” Nelson Powers continued.

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Nielson Bowles previously revealed in a Nov. 24 Instagram post that the family had returned home after an “extremely difficult week,” sharing multiple photos of them with baby Rowan.

Now, Nelson Powers is focusing on her recovery. “I feel stronger and healed every day,” she wrote in a Dec. 3 Instagram Stories post, explaining that she just had her two-week post-surgery visit.