“That sounds so terrible,” the Dancing With the Stars pro, 27, exclusively told Us Weekly recently while promoting her Witney Carson x JuJuBe bags from the JuJuBe Beyond collection, all available in “Spice,” her favorite color. “My sister-in-law, she was like, ‘I pushed twice and [my daughter] came out, and I delivered her by myself and put her right on my chest.’ And I just bawled. I was like, ‘Oh, my gosh. Why can’t that be me?’”

The Utah native’s birth was “traumatic,” she explained, noting that her now 4-month-old was “stuck” beneath her pelvis ahead of her emergency C-section. “It took a really long time for me to be like, you know what? A C-section is an incredible way to have a baby. It’s full-on surgery. It’s hardcore. You have a serious battle wound.”

While the procedure was “so tough” for the choreographer, she now feels “thankful” for the experience.

“If C-sections weren’t a thing, Leo would not be here,” the season 19 winner told Us. “For me, that was big. It just hit me like a ton of bricks. This was my experience. And it was perfect for me. I don’t know why, but that was meant to happen to me. I just had to come to terms with it. … It definitely was meant to be.”

The dancer previously called her postpartum journey “anything but glamorous” in a February Instagram post, revealing that she initially thought she’d “never recover” from her surgery.

“Even though that thought was so scary for me, I was and am SO proud of this body, that it protected and nurtured this little human,” the new mom went on to write at the time. “Our bodies are truly amazing. … Here’s to the women!”

Carson’s DWTS costar Lindsay Arnold gave birth to her first child, daughter Sage, two months ahead of Leo’s arrival. When the So You Think You Can Dance alums were both pregnant, Carson exclusively told Us that she was experiencing worse symptoms.

“Comparing our pregnancies, she’s definitely had a blissful one,” she said at the time. “Just recently, Lindsay’s pelvis is starting to hurt a lot and she, like, can barely walk. She’s like, ‘It’s the weirdest thing.’ Other than that, she hasn’t been really sick. She hasn’t been feeling any cramping at all.”

With reporting by Christina Garibaldi

This story originally appeared on: US Magazine - Author:Riley Cardoza