Ashley Graham on Her Near-Death Childbirth Experience, Reveals She Previously Suffered Miscarriage

Ashley graham/ instagram

Ashley Graham is opening up about her recent traumatic experience with childbirth.

The model, 34, recounts the January home birth of her twin boys in a personal essay for Glamour, in which she reveals that she "lost liters of blood" and was unable to "walk for a week" following the harrowing few hours.

Graham shares that she hemorrhaged in the early morning she gave birth to twin sons Roman and Malachi, who she shares with husband Justin Ervin. After giving birth to the twins just over two hours apart, Graham says she "blacked out" and only remembers "feeling a light touch on my cheek, which I found out later was actually somebody smacking the crap out of my cheek."

"When I finally came to, I looked around and I saw everybody. They just kept saying to me, 'You're fine. You're fine. You're fine.' They didn't want to tell me, right then, that I'd lost liters of blood. They didn't want to tell me that one of the midwives had to flip me over, press her finger down right above my vagina bone to try and stop the bleeding," she continues. "And they didn't want to tell me that the vein in my arm kept collapsing and they couldn't get the needle in for the Pitocin, so they'd had to put it in my hand."

The mom of three — Graham also is mom to son Isaac, 2, with Ervin — says she was unable to "sit up or even crawl" and was rolled onto a trundle bed where she stayed for "four straight days."

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Ashley Graham/Instagram

RELATED: Ashley Graham on the Transition to Being a Mom of 3: 'Full-Time Job'

"I couldn't walk for a week. And I didn't leave my house for nearly two months," she reveals. "My midwives checked in on me every day. I think they thought I was going to be triggered by how severe the events had been, but I kept telling them, 'You all saved me. God saved me. This is a true miracle.' "

Elsewhere in the essay, Graham shared for the first time that she suffered a miscarriage in February 2021. The model says after moving back to New York from Nebraska, where her then-family of three was residing in her mother's basement during lockdown, she "fell pregnant in January of 2021, on my husband's birthday."

"Because it was my second pregnancy, I started to show early, and we were so excited," she recalls. "But at the end of February, I had a miscarriage. It was devastating; it felt like one of the biggest losses I had ever had in my life to date."

"And I understood at that point what so many other mothers have gone through. I had a child already, and looking at him was the only way to ease my pain, and yet the loss was so acute. I cannot even fathom how heartbreaking it must be for women who have not yet had children, and for those who have been through miscarriages multiple times," she continues.

"And yet the world expects us to move on and handle our grief with grace. I just remember breaking down more than a few times, just at random, and thinking, 'How do women across the world do this? Because my story is no bigger than anyone else's.' "

Ashley Graham/Instagram

Graham recently spoke to PEOPLE about the transition to being a mom of three, sharing that it's "quite a full-time job."

"Just 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. is already a full day," she added.

As Graham begins transitioning back to work, she said she's "taking it easy." Though she's always been particular about what brands and companies she works with, the model said she's "picking and choosing" even more carefully now. "I don't want to feel overwhelmed rushing back into work."