Sofia Richie Reveals She Had Contractions for '6 Weeks' Before Giving Birth: 'I Was Really Terrified'

"She's amazing. This girl does not complain, by the way. What she went through, it was really traumatic," Dr. Thais Aliabadi says of the model

Sofia Richie Grainge is opening up about her difficult pregnancy.

As a guest on the Tuesday, Oct. 15 episode of the She MD podcast hosted by her own OBGYN Dr. Thais Aliabadi (Dr. A), the model, 25, reveals that she experienced a challenging pregnancy before welcoming daughter Eloise in May with her husband Elliot Grainge. The obstacles didn't stop there for the new mom, who shares she also had a a tough postpartum diagnosis.

"I'm actually really excited to be here with you guys today just because now that I have my child, I'm like, I feel like people really don't talk about all the things that go wrong and all the things after you give birth that are so hard," Sofia told Dr. A and her co-host Mary Alice Haney.

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Related: Sofia Richie Shows Off New Diamond 'Eloise' Necklace in Sweet Snap of Her Daughter's Little Hand

Sofia shared that everything was going smoothly up until 32 weeks, when she recalled texting Dr. A to make sure what she was feeling was "normal."

"At 32 weeks I woke up and I was like, 'Hey, I woke up and I'm really tired today. My back really hurts. I feel a little crampy.' And I really thought it was going to be another one of those, 'Yeah, babe, that's pregnancy. You're going to be fine, but you can come in if you want me to check you' type situations," she recalled.

But instead, "She was like, 'You know what? Actually, I think you should go see the fetal specialist to monitor, to make sure that everything's okay, and then you'll go home. It's not a big deal.' "

"Thank God she said that," Sofia added, "because they hooked me up to the monitor and they were like, 'You're in active labor.' " While she still doesn't know what caused her early active labor, Sofia says, "I was really terrified."

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After six days in the hospital, "I was begging. I was like, 'Please, please let me go home.' And she was like, 'You can go home, but you're on bed rest. We have to monitor you,' " Sofia explained. "So that's what I did. It was kind of a waiting game from there."

For the next six weeks, Sofia was contracting while on bed rest until they "induced at 38 weeks" — which was Dr. A's goal for her. "I had a fantastic delivery," Sofia added.

"She's amazing," Dr. A says of her patient. "This girl does not complain, by the way. What she went through, it was really traumatic. Six weeks she was having contractions."

"I gave birth and I was like, 'Wow, I really did that,' " Sofia remembered thinking at the time. "I did six weeks or however many weeks of contractions and I have my beautiful daughter. I'm healthy. I'm safe. She's healthy. She's safe."

However, two days after welcoming Eloise, "I went home and I blew up like a balloon. Quite literally, just swelled," Sofia said. "I felt very ill... So she sent over her wonderful nurse and my blood pressure was 165 over 103, which is like —"

"It's postpartum preeclampsia," Dr. A chimed in, which is "a rare condition that occurs when you have high blood pressure and excess protein in your urine soon after childbirth," as MayoClinic.org explains.

Related: Sofia Richie Welcomes First Baby, a Girl, with Husband Elliot Grainge: 'Best Day of My Life'

Despite her pain and swelling, Sofia said, "The hardest thing I ever had to do, I think literally, was leave my daughter two days postpartum. It was horrendous. I actually hid in the closet and cried."

"And my poor husband was like, 'I have to get you to the hospital because the doctor is saying it's just not safe. It's not safe that you're home.' So I spent 24 hours in the hospital and it was really, really, really hard," she recalled.

She explained it was so hard because, "My mom guilt kicked in. I don't know why, from the second Eloise was born, I was like, 'I can't miss an awake time. I can't miss a moment. I don't want someone else taking care of my kid.' "

"That was another thing that we talked about in the hospital," Sofia continued. "Like, 'Yes, I feel so blessed and fortunate to be able to have people help me and to be able to have support, but I also am not interested in someone raising my kid.' I wouldn't have had a kid if I wasn't ready to take that on. So my mom guilt has been balancing those two things."

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