The last piece of new music Melanie Fiona released was when she announced her pregnancy in her music video “I Want It All” last November. Since then, she’s devoted herself to raising her son, Cameron, but took some time out recently speak very candidly about the severe complications she experienced during her pregnancy in a video uploaded to her YouTube channel this week.

“I wanted this vlog to be called ‘It’s Time to Tell the Truth’ because I feel like there’s not a lot of truth being told amongst women, and especially women in the public eye and in the media, about what it’s like to have a baby and be a woman, a working woman, trying to find herself and her place in this world,” the Toronto native said.

She explained that during labor, she developed preeclampsia, a condition characterized by high blood pressure and swelling that can cause serious health complications. She also revealed that delivering her baby was a challenge because he was facing the wrong direction. To save her son, she had the tough choice to have a C-section, which she was initially against.

“They started talking C-section immediately and I said absolutely not. Cameron was [doing fine]. I, on the other hand, was falling apart and didn’t know it,” she said. “It came to a point where [my partner] came in, took my hand, looked me in my eyes and said, ‘I have to leave the hospital with both of you.’ Until that moment, I did not recognize how real and severe my situation was.”

The singer also spoke out about the insurmountable “pressure in the media” for women to bounce back immediately after childbirth.

"There’s so much pressure in our images of women of what we’re supposed to be — the 'Snapback,' the 'you better get back to who you were' — but I don’t wanna be who I was. This infinite source of love, I would never trade it for the world."