Warning: Graphic description of labor and emergency surgery

The Bachelor alum Krystal Nielson Bowles is opening up about her harrowing birth story.

On Wednesday, Dec. 3, Nielson Bowles, 38 — who starred on season 22 of The Bachelor back in 2018, before appearing on season 5 of Bachelor in Paradise later that year — spoke out 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 healing at home and follow-up discussions with doctors,” the reality TV star explained how she finally felt ready to share her story, describing the birth as “the most traumatic experience we’ve ever endured.”

Nielson Bowles recalled how she’d gone into the hospital on Nov. 14 “for a scheduled induction due to an umbilical vein varix,” which was the same condition that prompted them to induce early with their daughter, Andara. Per Mayo Clinic, they are “bulging, enlarged veins.”

The health and wellness coach said that Andara’s birth “had felt like a gift,” and they assumed their second baby “would be faster and gentler.”

Nielson Bowles said that 33 hours later, Rowan still hadn’t made an appearance, adding that she was “utterly exhausted and sleep deprived,” so she finally “agreed to an epidural” so they could break her water and hopefully “speed things along.”

Miles Bowles and Krystal Nielson Bowles are pictured with their son Rowan.Krystal Nielson Bowles/Instagram

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

“As the team gathered, a double rainbow — bright, impossible, perfect — painted itself across the sky outside my window. We all teared up. In that moment, it felt like heaven itself leaned in and said ‘I got you,’” Nielson Bowles wrote, sharing a snap of the rainbow alongside multiple others from her birth journey.

Krystal Nielson Bowles and Miles Bowles’ son Rowan.Krystal Nielson Bowles/Instagram

“Pushing started strong, but an hour in, something felt off. Rowan had stopped descending,” Nielson Bowles remembered, adding that 37 hours total into her induction and after nearly three and a half hours of pushing, the obstetrician came to check on her before “bright blood appeared” moments later.

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

After her doctor tried to rotate baby Rowan, she discovered that Nielson Bowles’ “uterus had ruptured,” the reality star said, adding that “within seconds, a full code team burst in” and she was rushed off for an emergency C-section, which she was awake for.

Nielson Bowles shared that her son “swallowed a large amount of blood during the rupture and was rushed to the NICU” before she got to see his face.

“With an initial Apgar score of 2 and high acidosis [acid] levels, they didn’t know if he’d been without oxygen long enough to cause brain damage,” she wrote. “Not being able to see him, touch him, or even know if he would survive those first hours was a pain I can’t put into words.”

Nielson Bowles said that in the “relentless” 10 minutes that followed, multiple people “worked urgently to free” Rowan while her “body was pulled and maneuvered with such force that Miles had to brace” her shoulders and hold her down as she “cried out in pain.”

“Rowan’s shoulder had protruded through a severe tear in the right side of my uterus, making it extremely difficult to remove him,” she shared, admitting that she’ll “never forget the gurgled sounds” she made, “the panic in the doctor’s voices, or the excruciating minute” waiting to hear Rowan’s first cry.

Krystal Nielson Bowles and Miles Bowles with their two children.Krystal Nielson Bowles/Instagram

Nielson Bowles said that the doctors later told them that if they hadn’t already been in the hospital and gotten to surgery so fast, “one or both of us would not have made it.”

“Once he was out, they put me under to repair my uterus, which was in pieces — shredded, falling apart, and refusing stitches,” she remembered, adding that medics managed to perform an “absolute miracle” and save her uterus in the end.

However, she said that “due to the massive vertical tear running top to bottom,” the family had been “strongly advised not to have more children” due to the high risk of another rupture.

“Since we’ve been planning on a [third] child, this news was devastating to hear,” Nielson Bowles said.

Krystal Nielson Bowles is pictured in the hospital.Krystal Nielson Bowles/Instagram

Rowan then spent 72 hours in therapeutic hypothermia, with his body cooled to 92.3 degrees Fahrenheit “to protect his brain.”

Neilson Bowles then got to meet her son for the first time when he was two days old, before she finally got to hold him on day four, “once he was rewarmed and cleared of seizures or brain damage.”

She said that “thanks to everyone’s prayers and by the grace of God — every test came back normal,” and the family walked out of the NICU together with their “miracle baby” on day six.

“This Thanksgiving carried a weight we never could have imagined. We stared death in the face and were handed life — a raw, trembling, breathtaking life,” Neilson wrote, adding that the family had experienced “miracle upon miracle upon miracle.”

She said that every year from now on on Rowan’s birthday, the family will “have a new family tradition” and will lower themselves into “ice-cold water together,” to remember what Rowan’s body temperature felt like “when the world hung in the balance.”

“We will shiver, we will cry, we will laugh, and we will rise — because that is the story of how our son came to us, and we will never, ever let ourselves forget the cold that forged his unbreakable heart,” Nielson Bowles continued.

Nielson Bowles had previously revealed in a Nov. 24 Instagram post that the family was home “after an incredibly tough week,” sharing multiple snaps of them with baby Rowan.

Now, Nielson Bowles is focusing on her recovery. “Every day I feel stronger and more healed,” she wrote in a Dec. 3 Instagram Stories post, explaining that she’d just had her two week post-op visit.