I was feeling pretty pleased with how the birth of my son, Elliott, had gone. It certainly hadn’t been easy, but it had been relatively straightforward and had taken just seven hours from the first contraction – which I was told is unusual for someone having their first child. I was on a high.

And then I noticed the blood. At first, the midwives in the birth centre didn’t think it was anything to worry about. But when it didn’t stop it soon it became clear my placenta was stuck.

It’s a condition called placenta accreta in which the placenta has embedded too deeply into the lining of the uterus, and it affects about one in 500 pregnant women. Looking it up later, I found out Kim Kardashian had experienced the same thing giving birth to her first child.

Imagine you’ve run a marathon, and just after you cross the finish line you get run over by a lorry. You’ve gone through the most physically demanding and painful hours of your life, then when you finally get to hold your baby, your sense of euphoria is knocked out of you and there are suddenly people quite literally rummaging inside your body. I hadn’t had any pain relief.

My baby was, thankfully, fine and was left with my husband as I was prepped for emergency surgery. I remember having to sign a consent form giving permission for them to perform a hysterectomy if necessary. Often a hysterectomy is the most effective way to treat this condition, but surgeons try to avoid it.

Fortunately, they were able to solve my problem by removing the placenta piece by piece and inserting a balloon inside my womb to stop the bleeding. I lost nearly all of my body’s blood and had to have a lifesaving transfusion.

I woke up after the operation, terrified and exhausted, desperately wanting to see my baby. But I had to wait another 12 hours to hold him properly for the first time.

I spent three days in the high dependency unit and was more or less immobile for the first 36 hours. I even had to be helped to shift my weight on the bed. It would have been easy to have found all of this humiliating, but I was so thankful to be alive – and everyone was so sensitive and caring – that my overriding feelings were of awe and gratitude.

Every now and then the staff looking after me would crack jokes to help me feel more human, and the “junior” doctors fought hard for me to be moved to a ward with my baby as soon as possible.

The care didn’t end when I left hospital eight days after giving birth. I had follow-ups at home with the local supervisor of the midwives’ team, a service they offer to women who have had difficult births.

I’m so grateful they kept checking up on me. When I left hospital, I was physically and emotionally exhausted and felt utterly hollow and bereft. I can honestly say that I’ve never felt less “alive” than on the day I got home with our new baby, which still breaks my heart. With time – and the help of family, friends and the midwife supervisor – I was able to come to terms with what had happened.

I gave birth at Lewisham hospital – the hospital the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, tried in vain to downgrade. Had he been successful, the midwife-led unit where I gave birth would have still been there, but the emergency care would have gone. I honestly don’t know what would have happened if I hadn’t been able to get help as quickly as I did.

I do know that if I didn’t live in a country with such a stellar healthcare system, I probably would have died. The staff at Lewisham were nothing short of incredible.

It’s been 10 months now since Elliott was born and we’ve just managed to take our first international trip as a family, and we’re currently in Seattle. If it wasn’t for the NHS, I don’t think we would be here at all.