Jodie Turner-Smith reveals she spent 4 days in labour, details home birth

Pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood represent an incredible feat and experience; one which demands no shortage of strength and fortitude, in equal measure with tender moments. In a recent, heartfelt essay penned for British Vogue, Jodie Turner-Smith pulled back the curtain on her recent journey into motherhood; notably, revealing that she was in labour for nearly 4 days.In the essay, the actress detailed her home birth, at her Los Angeles home with her husband, Joshua Jackson, by her side. She notes that her pregnancy felt anything but normal—arriving on the heels of her breakthrough role in Queen & Slim, the eventual onset of a global pandemic, and the Black Lives Matter movement returning to the cultural conversation.Not to mention, Turner-Smith admits she battled constant waves of nausea and fatigue in her first trimester, along with subchorionic bleeds. But despite competing factors, she notes her journey has been a remarkable one, previously described on her Instagram account as “a fantastic voyage that begins in wonder and transformation.”

With stunning portraits by her husband, Joshua Jackson, captured while she was labour at home, just 24 hours before their baby girl arrived. https://t.co/le0lyYy60z

— British Vogue (@BritishVogue) August 12, 2020

“Every stage of my pregnancy brought its own challenges and lessons. Nobody really teaches you about what your body goes through to bring a child into the world until you’re actually doing it," Turner-Smith reveals.Speaking to her relationship with her husband, and his ongoing support over the last nine months, she explains that both of them had watched their mothers struggle to raise children without the support of a partner. “Both of us were determined to create something different for ourselves. He kept saying to me, ‘There’s no part of this that I’m going to miss.’ And there wasn’t.”[video_embed id='1905429']WATCH: Jodie Turner-Smith doesn’t want to raise kids in America or the U.K.[/video_embed]True to his word, Jackson ensured he was there every step of the way. “Early in the morning on my third day of labour, my husband and I shared a quiet moment. I was fatigued and beginning to lose my resolve. Josh ran me a bath, and as I lay in it contracting, I talked to my body and I talked to my daughter. In that moment, he snapped a picture of me. An honest moment of family and togetherness – a husband supporting a wife, our baby still inside me, the sacred process of creating a family.” Turner-Smith then gave birth to a beautiful, healthy baby girl.

 

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many many many thanks to @edward_enninful for giving me the space to write about birthing at home during these fraught times in the incredible @BritishVogue september issue, out on newsstands & available for digital download now! go to link in bio to see more also congrats to my loving husband @vancityjax for being a vogue photographer now

A post shared by Jodie Turner-Smith (@jodiesmith) on Aug 12, 2020 at 12:39pm PDT

According to the essay, the couple decided on a home birth long before grappling with the realities of COVID-19. The actress explains that the couple shared concerns about the negative birth outcomes so commonly experienced by Black women in America. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that the risk of pregnancy-related deaths is more than three times greater for Black women than for white women—a problem related to systemic racism in healthcare institutions. “Delivering at home ensured that I had what every single woman deserves to have: full agency in determining my birth support,” Jodie told British Vogue.And for fans and parents-to-be wondering what it’s like to bring a child into what feels like an uncertain world, Turner-Smith admits it’s a question that has weighed heavy on her mind.“Sometimes I wonder how I will explain to my daughter what it meant to be born in the year 2020,” she explains in her essay. “The historic events, the social unrest, and me – a new mother just trying to do her best. I think I will tell her that it was as if the world had paused for her to be born. And that, hopefully, it never quite returned to the way it was before.”[video_embed id='2012607']BEFORE YOU GO: Sterling K. Brown talks about power of representation on TV[/video_embed]